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[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style"
] | C_4744cd08c770477eb98b65cdcc66572a_0 | What was Haden's musical style? | 1 | What was Charlie Haden's musical style? | Charlie Haden | In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER | In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. | Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease | true | [
"Ruth Cameron is an American record producer and jazz vocalist.\n\nBiography\nCameron came from a musical family, but first acted in theaters in North America and Europe. After marrying bassist Charlie Haden, she was his manager and co-produced many of his albums. Land of the Sun, a Haden album she co-produced, won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2005.\n\nCameron also studied singing. Her first recording was First Songs, for EmArcy Records, with Haden, drummer Larance Marable, and pianist Chris Dawson. Her second album, recorded in 1999 for Verve Records, was Roadhouse.\n\nShe was one of the vocalists on Haden's Sophisticated Ladies. She also appeared on the Haden family's bluegrass album, Rambling Boy. She sang in the UK in 2011.\n\nDiscography\n\nAs leader\nRoadhouse (Verve, 1999)\nFirst Songs (Emarcy, 1997)\n\nAs guest\nCharlie Haden Sophisticated Ladies (EmArcy, 2011)\nCharlie Haden Rambling Boy (EmArcy, 2008)\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican women jazz singers\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican women record producers\n21st-century American women",
"J. V. Haden (full name and dates of birth and death unknown) was an English cricketer. Haden's batting style is also unknown.\n\nHaden made his first-class debut for Surrey against Nottinghamshire in 1882. He made six further first-class appearances in that season, the last of which came against Lancashire. In his seven first-class matches, he scored 42 runs at a batting average of 4.20, with a high score of 22.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJ. V. Haden at ESPNcricinfo\nJ. V. Haden at CricketArchive\n\nEnglish cricketers\nSurrey cricketers"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What was Haden's musical style?",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass."
] | C_4744cd08c770477eb98b65cdcc66572a_0 | Who or what is his style influence by? | 2 | Who or what is Charlie Haden's style influence by? | Charlie Haden | In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease | false | [
"Scruggs style is the most common style of playing the banjo in bluegrass music. It is a fingerpicking method, also known as three-finger style. It is named after Earl Scruggs, whose innovative approach and technical mastery of the instrument have influenced generations of bluegrass banjoists ever since he was first recorded in 1946. It contrasts with earlier styles such as minstrel, classic or parlor style (a late 19th-century finger-style played without picks), clawhammer/frailing/two-finger style (played with thumb and nail of the first or middle finger), jazz styles played with a plectrum, and more modern styles such as Keith/melodic/chromatic/arpa style, and single-string/Reno style. The influence of Scruggs is so pervasive that even bluegrass players such as Bill Keith and Don Reno, who are credited with developing these latter styles, typically work out of the Scruggs style much of the time.\n\nScruggs-style banjo is played with picks on the thumb, index and middle fingers; the pinky and/or ring fingers are typically braced against the head (top) of the instrument. The strings are picked rapidly in repetitive sequences or rolls; the same string is not typically picked twice in succession. Melody notes are interspersed among arpeggios, and musical phrases typically contain long series of staccato notes, often played at very rapid tempos. The music is generally syncopated, and may have a subtle swing or shuffle feel, especially on mid-tempo numbers. The result is lively, rapid music, which lends itself both as an accompaniment to other instruments and as a solo.\n\nBeginning with his first recordings with Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys, and later with Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, Earl Scruggs introduced a vocabulary of \"licks\", short musical phrases that are reused in many different songs. Because these licks were widely copied (with variations) by later players, they have become one of the defining attributes of the style, and give it its characteristic sound. These licks often contain fretting-hand embellishments such as slides, chokes (bends), hammer-ons, or plucking the strings with the fretting hand (left hand pizzicato), which add to the harmonic and rhythmic complexity. Many licks also make use of blue notes, giving the music a bluesier feel.\n\nThere is some debate as to how much of the \"Scruggs style\" was actually \"invented\" by Scruggs. For example, Scruggs names Snuffy Jenkins as a major influence. But there is little doubt that he did more to popularize the style than any of his contemporaries; it is hard to overstate his influence. In 1968, the instructional manual Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo (2005: ) was published. This made Scruggs' technique more widely accessible, and as one of the earliest books of its kind for bluegrass banjo, helped spread Scruggs' influence considerably. The style was also popularized by Scruggs' recording of the theme song of the television program The Beverly Hillbillies, \"The Ballad of Jed Clampett\", as well as the use of \"Foggy Mountain Breakdown\" in the film Bonnie and Clyde.\n\nThe Google Doodle of January 11, 2019 paid homage to Scruggs by featuring a \"close-up\" animated demonstration of the \"Scruggs style.\"\n\nSee also\nCrosspicking\n\nSources\n\nMusical performance techniques\nBluegrass music",
"Granby is a sans-serif typeface designed and released by the Stephenson Blake type foundry of Sheffield from 1930.\n\nGranby is influenced by a contemporary British sans-serif design, the Johnston typeface or Railway Alphabet (1916), the proprietary face of what became London Underground, and Gill Sans (1928) which had recently been released and become popular. Roy Millington's history of Stephenson Blake also cites Futura as an influence.\n\nLike both Johnston and Gill Sans, Granby has an upper-case influenced by Roman square capitals and a lower-case inspired by traditional \"old-style\" serif letters, making it an example of what is now called the humanist style of sans-serif fonts. Granby's regular style is a robust design bolder than conventional body text fonts, making it suitable for headings and posters and also for legible text at smaller sizes.\n\nGranby resembles Johnston with diamond-shaped dots (tittles) on the 'i' and 'j' and a wide ‘a’. A difference is its ‘g’, a ‘single-storey’ design influenced by handwriting. According to Mike Ashworth of Transport for London, London Transport itself made some use of Granby by the 1960s due to the limited availability of Johnston type. \n\nSeveral styles of Granby were released to extend the design, including condensed weights, an inlined style and 'Granby Elephant', an ultra-bold design. As with many sans-serifs, rather than a true italic, an oblique was offered, in which the letters were slanted but not altered to take on more handwriting influences.\n\nWhile never as popular as Gill Sans on the commercial market, Granby nonetheless remained in use with revivals in phototypesetting and digital versions. A digitisation of some weights is sold by Elsner+Flake and Scangraphic; Red Rooster Fonts has also digitised the Elephant style. It was appropriately used in adverts by the London company Granby Cycles in the 1930s.\n\nWayfarer, by Jeremy Tankard, is a loose revival of the condensed style, commissioned by Sheffield City Council as their corporate font based on its local heritage. (It also has some influences of Stephenson Blake's well-known Grotesque series.) Jeremy Mickel's Specter is a loose adaptation with true italic and an inline version drawn by Douglas Hayes. Dieter Hofrichter's Halifax is also in the same style.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Stephenson Blake specimen book, photographed by Romesh Naik\n Granby Inline\n Granby Shadow\n Example use on Fonts in Use\n EPlates\n\nHumanist sans-serif typefaces\nDisplay typefaces\nStephenson Blake typefaces\nTypefaces and fonts introduced in 1930"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What was Haden's musical style?",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.",
"Who or what is his style influence by?",
"I don't know."
] | C_4744cd08c770477eb98b65cdcc66572a_0 | What genre did Haden play? | 3 | What genre did Charlie Haden play? | Charlie Haden | In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER | "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony | Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease | true | [
"Mágico: Carta de Amor (Portuguese for \"Magician: Love Letter\") is a live album by saxophonist Jan Garbarek, guitarist Egberto Gismonti and bassist Charlie Haden recorded in 1981 and released on the ECM label in 2012. The album follows the trio's first two recordings Magico (1979) and Folk Songs (1981).\n\nReception\n\nAll About Jazz correspondent John Kelman commented, \"Carta de Amor is a reminder of how a particular point in time, when the pan-cultural and cross-genre interests of three artists from vastly different backgrounds and musical upbringings, could come together in rare synchronicity\".\n\nThe AllMusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars, stating, \"Mágico: Carta de Amor is a musical treasure trove that features three players from three continents working in near-symbiotic dialogue, offering music that showcases compositional and improvisational mastery, yet transcends the limitations of genre classification\".\n\nThe Guardians John Fordham noted, \"It's an impassioned and fiercely improvisational collection of variations on powerful themes by all three, touching on Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra repertoire and Garbarek's free-jazz history\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll compositions by Egberto Gismonti except as indicated Disc One: \"Carta de Amor\" – 7:25 \n \"La Pasionaria\" (Charlie Haden) – 16:26 \n \"Cego Aderaldo\" – 9:50 \n \"Folk Song\" (Traditional) – 8:09 \n \"Don Quixote\" – 8:25 \n \"Spor\" (Jan Garbarek) – 14:01 Disc Two:' \n \"Branquinho\" – 7:37 \n \"All That Is Beautiful\" (Haden) – 15:35 \n \"Palhaço\" – 9:12 \n \"Two Folk Songs\" (Traditional) – 3:39 \n \"Carta de Amor, Var.\" – 7:35\n\nPersonnel\n Jan Garbarek – soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone\n Egberto Gismonti – guitar, piano\n Charlie Haden – bass\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Jan Garbarek / Egberto Gismonti / Charlie Haden – Mágico: Carta de Amor (rec. 1981, rel. 2012) album review by Thom Jurek, credits & releases at AllMusic\n Jan Garbarek / Egberto Gismonti / Charlie Haden – Mágico: Carta de Amor (rec. 1981, rel. 2012) album releases & credits at Discogs\n Jan Garbarek / Egberto Gismonti / Charlie Haden – Mágico: Carta de Amor (rec. 1981, rel. 2012) album to be listened as stream on Spotify\n\nECM Records live albums\nCharlie Haden live albums\nJan Garbarek live albums\nEgberto Gismonti albums\n2012 live albums\nAlbums produced by Manfred Eicher",
"The Outlaw's Daughter is a 1954 American Western film directed by Wesley Barry and written by Samuel Roeca. The film stars Bill Williams, Sheila Connolly, Jim Davis, George Cleveland, Sara Haden, Elisha Cook, Jr. and Nelson Leigh. The film was released on November 1, 1954, by 20th Century Fox.\n\nPlot\n\nCast \nBill Williams as Jess Raidley aka Big Red\nSheila Connolly as Kate Dalton \nJim Davis as Marshal Dan Porter\nGeorge Cleveland as Lem Creel\nSara Haden as Mrs. Merril\nElisha Cook, Jr. as Lewis 'Tulsa' Cook\nNelson Leigh as Jim Dalton\nGuinn \"Big Boy\" Williams as Moose\nGeorge Barrows as 'Rock' Swenson\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1954 films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\nAmerican Western (genre) films\n1954 Western (genre) films\n20th Century Fox films\nFilms scored by Raoul Kraushaar"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What was Haden's musical style?",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.",
"Who or what is his style influence by?",
"I don't know.",
"What genre did Haden play?",
"\"combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony"
] | C_4744cd08c770477eb98b65cdcc66572a_0 | Is there anything significant about Haden's musical style? | 4 | Is there anything significant about Charlie Haden's musical style? | Charlie Haden | In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER | he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. | Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease | true | [
"Live at the Village Vanguard is a live album by pianist Geri Allen, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian. It was recorded in 1990 at the Village Vanguard and released on the Japanese DIW label.\n\nReception\n\nAllmusic awarded the album 4 stars, stating, \"Live at the Village Vanguard is a good CD musically, but there's not much jump-up factor here -- it's moody and very bluesy in feeling if not actual form, almost like chamber jazz at times. The very compressed, muted recorded sound doesn't alleviate the somber aspect of the listening experience any, but jazz is about capturing the moment. And those were the moments, emotional and musical, caught by these three master musicians on those two December nights\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll compositions by Geri Allen except as indicated\n \"A Prayer for Peace\" – 6:32\n \"Obtuse Angles\" – 6:07\n \"It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago\" (Paul Motian) - 7:11\n \"For Turiya\" (Charlie Haden) - 1:01\n \"Fiasco\" (Motian) - 8:23\n \"In the Year of the Dragon\" (Motian) - 7:41\n \"Vanguard Blues\" (Haden) - 7:43\n \"Mumbo Jumbo\" (Motian) - 9:28\n \"Song for the Whales\" (Haden) - 7:59\n\nPersonnel \nGeri Allen - piano\nCharlie Haden - bass \nPaul Motian - drums\n\nReferences \n\n1991 live albums\nGeri Allen live albums\nDIW Records live albums\nAlbums recorded at the Village Vanguard\nCharlie Haden albums\nPaul Motian albums\nLive instrumental albums",
"Mágico: Carta de Amor (Portuguese for \"Magician: Love Letter\") is a live album by saxophonist Jan Garbarek, guitarist Egberto Gismonti and bassist Charlie Haden recorded in 1981 and released on the ECM label in 2012. The album follows the trio's first two recordings Magico (1979) and Folk Songs (1981).\n\nReception\n\nAll About Jazz correspondent John Kelman commented, \"Carta de Amor is a reminder of how a particular point in time, when the pan-cultural and cross-genre interests of three artists from vastly different backgrounds and musical upbringings, could come together in rare synchronicity\".\n\nThe AllMusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars, stating, \"Mágico: Carta de Amor is a musical treasure trove that features three players from three continents working in near-symbiotic dialogue, offering music that showcases compositional and improvisational mastery, yet transcends the limitations of genre classification\".\n\nThe Guardians John Fordham noted, \"It's an impassioned and fiercely improvisational collection of variations on powerful themes by all three, touching on Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra repertoire and Garbarek's free-jazz history\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll compositions by Egberto Gismonti except as indicated Disc One: \"Carta de Amor\" – 7:25 \n \"La Pasionaria\" (Charlie Haden) – 16:26 \n \"Cego Aderaldo\" – 9:50 \n \"Folk Song\" (Traditional) – 8:09 \n \"Don Quixote\" – 8:25 \n \"Spor\" (Jan Garbarek) – 14:01 Disc Two:' \n \"Branquinho\" – 7:37 \n \"All That Is Beautiful\" (Haden) – 15:35 \n \"Palhaço\" – 9:12 \n \"Two Folk Songs\" (Traditional) – 3:39 \n \"Carta de Amor, Var.\" – 7:35\n\nPersonnel\n Jan Garbarek – soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone\n Egberto Gismonti – guitar, piano\n Charlie Haden – bass\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Jan Garbarek / Egberto Gismonti / Charlie Haden – Mágico: Carta de Amor (rec. 1981, rel. 2012) album review by Thom Jurek, credits & releases at AllMusic\n Jan Garbarek / Egberto Gismonti / Charlie Haden – Mágico: Carta de Amor (rec. 1981, rel. 2012) album releases & credits at Discogs\n Jan Garbarek / Egberto Gismonti / Charlie Haden – Mágico: Carta de Amor (rec. 1981, rel. 2012) album to be listened as stream on Spotify\n\nECM Records live albums\nCharlie Haden live albums\nJan Garbarek live albums\nEgberto Gismonti albums\n2012 live albums\nAlbums produced by Manfred Eicher"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What was Haden's musical style?",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.",
"Who or what is his style influence by?",
"I don't know.",
"What genre did Haden play?",
"\"combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony",
"Is there anything significant about Haden's musical style?",
"he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines."
] | C_4744cd08c770477eb98b65cdcc66572a_0 | Was his musical style used by other artists? | 5 | Was Charlie Haden's musical style used by other artists besides Charlie? | Charlie Haden | In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease | false | [
"Jan August (born Jan Augustoff; September 24, 1904 – January 9, 1976) was an American pianist and xylophonist. He had a hit with his version of \"Misirlou\" in 1947 with Carl Frederick Tandberg.\n\nAugust was born in New York City, United States. He was self-taught and began his career at age 17 in Greenwich Village, had hits with several other songs that blended classical styles and Latin beats. He was discovered in 1946 in a New York City nightclub by an executive for Diamond Records. The executive was so eager to have August with his label, he wrote the recording contract on one of the club's tablecloths. Early in his career August recorded on the Diamond label (\"Misirlou\" is on his album Piano Magic for Diamond). He played his hit for the Press Photographers' Ball in Washington, D.C., in 1947, and in turn, Harry Truman responded by playing the \"Missouri Waltz\" for August.\n\nIn the early 1950s, he was recording on Mercury; one notable Mercury side is a swinging and thoughtful arrangement of \"Hot Lips\". Later LP albums demonstrated a shift away from August's distinctive earlier style, toward the semi-satirical \"honky-tonk\" style of the late 1950s personified by such artists as Joe \"Fingers\" Carr.\n\nIn 1974, a musician calling himself Jan August played an extended engagement at St. Petersburg's La Ronda restaurant. When a newspaper reporter for the St. Petersburg Times went to see him perform, she realized he did not look like Jan August and had a different musical style. She became suspicious and traced August through the musicians' union in New York City. August declined pressing charges, but indicated that his name could no longer be used by the other musician.\n\nAugust died in New York City of heart disease at age 71, and was survived by his wife, Bette, three daughters and six grandchildren.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Jan August Papers at the Great American Songbook Foundation\n Jan August's \"Misirlou\" at the Internet Archive\n\n1904 births\n1976 deaths\nMercury Records artists\n20th-century American pianists\nAmerican male pianists\n20th-century American male musicians",
"Champs was a Brazilian boy band formed in 2013 by JS Entertainment owner Alex JS Lee. Champs consisted of five members: Diego, Ricky, Kenji, Henrique Bessat and Iago.\n\nChamps made its first appearance of pre-debut in October 2013 at Arirang TV in Seoul, South Korea. In November 2013, they appeared on PlayTV in São Paulo. In June 2014, the group began its official activities.\n\nHistory\n\n2014: Dynamite\nIn January 2013, JS Entertainment recruited four members through auditions. In October of the same year, the agency recruited another member. The group was named by the media and fans as a \"B-pop band\" due to its influences in K-pop music and South Korean music groups, although the term \"B-pop\" had never been used by other artists. The group spent two months in Seoul recording the \"Dynamite\" music video and took lessons with the choreographer of the hit song \"Gangnam Style\", Ju Sun Lee.\n\n2015: disbandment\nIn 2015, the official breakup of Champs was announced by JS Entertainment in a letter that they would not continue with the group due to local problems.\n\nReferences\n\nK-pop music groups\nMusical groups established in 2013\nMusical groups disestablished in 2015\nBrazilian pop music groups\nBrazilian boy bands\nBrazilian dance music groups\nMusical groups from São Paulo\nMusical quintets\n2013 establishments in Brazil"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy"
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | What conspiracy was she involved in | 1 | What conspiracy was Mary Surratt involved in ? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
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External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | true | [
"Madame Boudray (fl. 1796), was a French militant Jacobin active during the French Revolution. \n\nShe was appointed secretary of the Société fraternelle des patriotes de l'un et l'autre sexe in 1791. \n\nShe was the owner and manager of the popular café Bains-Chinois in Paris, which was a gathering place for the Jacobins. The Babeuvists used her café as a base, and she was likely the only female member of the Babeuf Conspiracy of the Equals, which resulted in her arrest in 1796.\n\nReferences \n\nJacobins\nPeople involved in Gracchus Babeuf's Conspiracy of Equals\n18th-century French businesspeople\nWomen in the French Revolution",
"Rajkumari Gupta (born 1902, Kanpur) was a freedom fighter known for her Role in Kakori conspiracy.\nRajkumari Gupta served jail terms in 1930, '32 and '42 for Kakori Conspiracy.\n\nEarly life \nRajkumari Gupta was born in 1902 in Banda Zilla of Kanpur. Gupta got married to Madan Mohan Gupta when she was in early 13 years of age.\n\nFreedom Struggle \nRajkumari Gupta along with her husband formed a close connection with Mahatma Gandhi and Chandrashekar Azad at Allahabad. Gupta's role as described by newspapers was supplying guns and passing seceret letters to the fellow nationalists involved in Kakori Conspiracy. With the abrupt stoppage of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1924, Rajkumari was drawn more into revolutionary ideas and landed in the close circle of Chandrashekhar Azad. Having established close links with the revolutionaries, particularly Chandrashekhar Azad, Rajkumari began delivering secret messages and materials to Chandrashekar Azad comrades in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HRA) without the knowledge of her husband and in-laws.\n\nAs mentioned in Women in the Indian National Movement: Unseen Faces and Unheard Voices, 1930-42 by SuruchiThapar-Bjorkert, Walking in afield hiding firearms under her garment, she got arrested. Her in-laws disowned her upon hearing the news. They even went onto claim in the local newspaper Vir Bhagat, that they didn’t have any relationship with her. Gupta led a secluded life after this incident.\n\nRajkumari Gupta, an associate of Chandra Sekhar Azad, while speaking on behalf on all women in a freedom sruggle in intreaction with the author Sagari Chhabra said, “Humko jo karna tha, kiya” (What We have to do, we did). Further she says, \"Hum upar se Gandhivaadi the, neeche se krantivaadi\" (We were Gandhians from above; underneath we were revolutionaries).\n\nSee also\n Kanpur District\n Kakori Conspiracy\n Indian independence movement\n\nReferences \n\nWomen Indian independence activists\nIndian independence activists from Uttar Pradesh\n19th-century Indian women\n19th-century Indian people\n1902 births\n\nYear of death missing\nDate of birth missing"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | Did she have co-conspirators | 2 | Did Mary Surratt have co-conspirators to kidnap Lincoln? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
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External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | true | [
"In the English language, a conspirator is a party to a conspiracy. In a criminal conspiracy, each alleged party is a \"co-conspirator\".\n\nConspirator(s) may refer to:\n\nBooks\nThe Conspirators (novel), 1843 French historical novel by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet\nConspirator (novel), 2009 American sci-fi novel set in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner universe\n\nFilms\nThe Conspirators (1924 film), British silent drama directed by Sinclair Hill\nThe Conspirators (1944 film), American World War II spy drama directed by Jean Negulesco\nConspirator (1949 film), British-American espionage thriller directed by Victor Saville\nNell'anno del Signore (English title: The Conspirators), a 1969 Italian historical drama directed by Luigi Magni\nThe Conspirator, a 2010 American historical drama directed by Robert Redford\nConspirators (film), a 2013 Hong Kong crime thriller directed by Oxide Pang\n\nOther\nThe Conspirators (band), a British northern indie / folk band\n\nSee also\nConspirateurs, a French board game\nConspiracy (disambiguation)",
"Acerronia Polla was a servant and friend of Agrippina the Younger, the mother of Nero. She was drowned in AD 59, when an unsuccessful attempt was made at the same time to drown Agrippina. She may have been the daughter of Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus, consul in AD 37.\n\nTacitus' account indicates that Agrippina the Younger had set sail on a cruise on which Nero had secreted conspirators intent on killing her. Agrippina and Acerronia, along with the steersman Crepereius Gallus, were underneath a canopy on deck which had been secretly weighted with lead. At a given signal, the canopy fell, killing the steersman, but missing Agrippina and Acerronia because of the high-backed couch they had been sitting on.\n\nThere had been a mechanism designed to scuttle the ship, although it malfunctioned, and the conspirators failed in their further efforts to sink the craft. Meanwhile, Agrippina and Acerronia entered the water. Acerronia called out, claiming that she was Agrippina. The conspirators struck her with poles and oars until she had either been bludgeoned to death or drowned. Agrippina, wounded in the shoulder, managed to swim to a passing fishing boat.\n\nThe account of Cassius Dio is fundamentally the same, although he does indicate that the boat was in fact scuttled, and that Acerronia drowned. He also mentions nothing about Agrippina being rescued by a passing boat, and instead claims she swam all the way to shore on her own.\n\nReferences\n\nPolla\n59 deaths\n1st-century Roman women\nYear of birth unknown"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | Did she help booth | 3 | Did Mary Surratt help booth? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
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Latimer, Christopher P. Civil Liberties and the State: A Documentary and Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood, 2011.
Leonard, Elizabeth D. Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War. New York: Norton, 2004.
MacHenry, Robert. Liberty's Women. Springfield, Mass.: G.C. Merriam Co., 1980.
Miller, Edward A. Lincoln's Abolitionist General: The Biography of David Hunter. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
Morseberger, Robert E. and Morsberger, Katharine M. Lew Wallace, Militant Romantic. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Oldroyd, Osborn H. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Flight, Pursuit, Capture, and Punishment of the Conspirators. Washington, D.C.: O.H. Oldroyd, 1901.
Ownsbey, Betty J. Alias 'Paine': Lewis Thorthon Powell, the Mystery Man of the Lincoln Conspiracy. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2006.
Phelps, Shirelle. World of Criminal Justice, Vol. 2: N-Z. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.
Phillips, Larissa. Women Civil War Spies of the Confederacy. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 2004.
Pittman, Benn. The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1865.
Rehnquist, William H. All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
Roscoe, Theodore. The Web of Conspiracy: The Complete Story of the Men Who Murdered Abraham Lincoln. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959.
Sachsman, David B.; Rushing, S. Kittrell; and Morris, Roy. Seeking A Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2009.
Schroeder-Lein, Glenna R. and Zuczek, Richard. Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2001.
Steers, Jr., Edward. Blood on the Moon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Steers, Jr., Edward. "'Let the Stain of Innocent Blood Be Removed from the Land': The Military Trial of the Lincoln Conspirators." In The Lincoln Assassination: Crime and Punishment, Myth and Memory. Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds, and Frank J. Williams, eds. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010.
Steers, Jr., Edward. The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010.
Steers, Jr., Edward. Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated With Our Greatest President. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
Steers, Jr. Edward and Holzer, Harold. The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.
Stern, Philip Van Doren. An End to Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958.
"Surratt, Mary." In The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998.
"Surratt, Mary E. Jenkins (1823–1865)." In Women in the American Civil War. Lisa Tendrich Frank, ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
"Surratt, Mary Eugenia Jenkins (1817–1865)." In Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction. Hans Louis Trefousse, ed. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
Swanson, James L. Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Swanson, James L. and Weinberg, Daniel R. Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Townsend, George Alfred. The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, Publishers, 1886.
Townsend, George Alfred. Washington, Outside and Inside: A Picture and a Narrative of the Origin, Growth, Excellencies, Abuses, Beauties, and Personages of Our Governing City. Hartford, Conn.: S.M. Betts & Co., 1874.
Trindal, Elizabeth Steger. Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy. Pelican Pub. Co., 1996.
Turner, Thomas Reed. Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
Van Doren, Charles Lincoln and McHenry, Robert. Webster's American Biographies. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1984.
Verge, Laurie. "Mary Elizabeth Surratt". In The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Watts, R.A. "Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators." Michigan History Magazine. 6:1 (1922).
Weichmann, Louis J. and Richards, A.C. A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865. New York: Knopf, 1975.
Zanca, Kenneth J.. The Catholics and Mrs. Mary Surratt: How They Responded to the Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirator. University Press of America, 2008.
External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | true | [
"Marian Billups Booth (4 May 1864 – 5 January 1937), better known as Marie Booth, was the third daughter of Catherine and William Booth, the founders of the Salvation Army.\n\nUnusually for the Victorian era, all of William and Catherine Booth's children survived into adulthood. Marie, however, had an accident at an early age that caused her to have convulsions thus making her an invalid; therefore, she was the only one of the Booth's children who did not regularly serve in the Salvation Army. She was, however, given the permanent rank of staff captain. \n\nHer sister Evangeline Booth often took care of her, and is said to have got into trouble for reprimanding a governess who had scolded Marie for being slow with her lessons. Marie was often pictured at family occasions such as her father's funeral in 1912. \n\nMarian Billups Booth died in 1937 aged 72 and is buried with her parents in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\n1864 births\n1937 deaths\nEnglish Salvationists\nBurials at Abney Park Cemetery\nMarie",
"Elizabeth Booth was born in 1674 and was one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. She grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, as the second eldest of ten children. When she was sixteen she was accused of being a witch. When she was eighteen, she began accusing people (ten people on record) of practicing witchcraft, including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Proctor, William Proctor, Benjamin Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd. Five of these people were executed due to Booth's testimony (John Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, and Wilmont Redd). Elizabeth Proctor would have been executed as well if she was not pregnant. After the Witch Trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695, and had two children named Israel (born December 16, 1698) and Susanna (born September 29, 1703). Booth's death date is unknown.\n\nLife before the trial \nBooth was born in 1674 in the Salem Village to George Booth Sr. and Alice Temple. Her parents were married some time before 1671 in Lynn/Salem, Massachusetts. She was the second eldest of ten siblings who included: George Booth Jr., Alice Booth, Benjamin Booth, Bridget Booth, Mary Booth, Rebecca Booth, Susanna Booth, and Zachariah Booth. Along with her ten siblings she had two in-law siblings. Booth was baptized on May 19, 1678, at age five, in Salem, Massachusetts along with several of her siblings: Bridget Booth, Rebecca Booth, and Zachariah Booth. When Booth was eight years old, her biological father, a woodworker, died. Her mother remarried and her stepfather died only four years later. Finally, at age eighteen, Booth claimed to be she was afflicted by witchcraft and became one of the six accusers of the Salem Witch Trials.\n\nBooth's role in the Salem Witch Trials\n\nAccusations against Booth \nBooth is remembered in American colonial history for her role in the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Commotion about witches in Salem had begun in January 1692. Witchcraft was first suspected within the Parris household, a family residing Salem Village. Reverend Samuel Parris had never completed his education at Harvard University and settled for the ministerial position in Salem. At the time, Reverend Parris had a slave, named Tituba working within in his household. There were rumors that she told the girls stories and \"did other sorts of practices\". After this, Betty Paris and Abilgail Williams, nine and eleven years old, began to experiment with white magic.\n\nIn February 1692, both Paris and Williams began acting suspicious, catching the attention of many. The girls fell into trances, crouched in the corner of rooms, saying things that were not sensible, and threw \"fits\" consisting of screaming and epileptic symptoms. \"Their bodies supposedly twisted as though their bones were made of putty.\" This behavior spread to six other girls in Salem Village, one being the sixteen year old Booth, making her one of the accusers. An assortment of doctors came to Salem to examine the girls, but nothing was concluded from their behavior. Then, Dr. William Griggs diagnosed the symptoms as stemming from witchcraft. The girls continued to have these symptoms, having episodes of \"fits\" and then afterward being perfectly fine. \"Asked what or who had caused them to suffer so, they could not answer. Authorities began questioning people exhibiting suspicious behavior to determine if they may have caused or influenced the condition of the afflicted girls. Tituba was one of those questioned and she confessed she knew of four witches and had knowledge of the behavior and actions the witches had taken. She confessed that she herself had attempted to murder children while under the influence of a specter. This confession made the girl's claim of seeing specters valid, and vastly aided the witch trials.\n\nAccusations against others \nBooth, at age eighteen, was one of the six accusers in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, claiming that she was afflicted by witchcraft. Throughout the trials, there are records indicating that she accused ten people of witchcraft. Five of those accused are known to be executed directly due to her testimonies. Those she accused include: John and Elizabeth Proctor, their fifteen-year-old daughter Sarah, William and Benjamin Proctor (two of their sons), Woody Proctor, Giles Corey and Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd.\n\nSpecifics of trials\n\nHow the trials went \nBooth's most significant accusation was against John and Elizabeth Proctor. She then went on to accuse their daughter, Sarah Proctor. Booth's reputation stemmed from being one of the accused to becoming the accuser and using her experience against others. The records show that twenty-five people in Salem, MA were either executed or sentenced to life in jail. During the trials, various tests were performed on the accused to determine if they were in fact witches. One commonly used test was the \"touching test.\" During this test an affected person would be required to throw a \"tantrum\", and then the accused had to touch the victim. If the victim calmed after being touched, the accused was a witch because it was believed \"the 'evil toxins' that had tormented the afflicted soul returned back to the host.\" A lot of people did not want to come forward, so the courts often used a form of torture to get a confession. \"Dunking\" was a common form. The accused would be continuously dunked underwater until the court received a confession.\n\nSpecific testimonies \nBooth's historical legacy as one of the six accusers in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials began on May 20, 1692, when she accused John and Elizabeth Proctor of committing the murders of a minimum of four people. She testified that the specters of those murdered had come to tell her they had been killed by the Proctors and begged Elizabeth to stop the murders. Her testimony, aided by her sister Alice's and her mother's support, convicted the Proctors of witchcraft and both were sentenced to be executed. However, Elizabeth Proctor was pregnant with her sixth child and she was placed in jail instead to await the birth of her child.\nOnce the trials ended, Elizabeth Proctor was reprieved and released.\n\nFollowing the trial of Elizabeth and John Proctor, Booth accused Goody Proctor of murder/witchcraft. She testified that her deceased stepfather had come to her and informed her that Goody had murdered him. Later, Booth would accuse Giles Corey of \"acting as a ringleader\" when \"fifty specters had flooded into their rural home for a devil's communion of wine and bread.\" He spent five months in jail bound by chains before he was crushed to death. On June 8, 1692, Elizabeth testified that Martha Corey (Giles Corey's wife) had murdered Thomas Goold Senyer. She said that “Thomas Goold Senyer came to her and told her that Martha said she would murder him if he did not do well by Goodman Parker's children.” On September 22, 1692, just three days after her husband's execution, Martha Cory was convicted and hanged. She was one of the last people to be executed during the Salem Witch Trials. On that same day, Wilmont Redd was also executed for the affliction of witchcraft towards Booth despite most evidence being speculation and not factual. Booth also claimed that Job Trooney tried to afflict her and others with witchcraft. Along with Booth's testimony, another accuser, Susannah Sheldon, also testified against Job Trooney. They claimed on June 7, 1692, he made eight other people in the town \"cry and want revenge\". Their testimony also claimed that “he looked as red as blood\". However, the jury ruled that Sheldon wasn't a credible source due to her testimony being \"overly visual and dramatic\". That ruling also affected Booth's testimony against Tooney; meaning that he could not be convicted due to lack of substantial evidence.\n\nLife after the trial\n\nMarriage and children \nBooth grew up in a home where both her father and stepfather died in the span of four years. Her father died when she was just eight years old. Her mother, Alice, remarried to George Booth, but just four years after their marriage, he died. Elizabeth grew up having to help her mother provide for the family, which was now her mother Alice, her younger brother George, and younger sister Alice. Booth worried about her marital status and if she would have any prospects after these two tragedies occurred in her family, so soon after one another. Two years after the witchcraft trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695. She was twenty two years old and the two were married in Salem, Essex co., MA. Israel Shaw was born in July 1680, his parents were William Shaw I and Elizabeth Fraile. He was the youngest of four siblings. Booth and Israel Shaw had two children. Their first, a son, Israel was born on December 16, 1698. They subsequently had daughter Susanna, born five years later on September 29, 1703. There is no documentation regarding their children's deaths, marriage, or offspring.\n\nIt was thought that after the trials, the six accusers married, changed their names, and moved away from Salem. However, it has not been confirmed that all six girls moved away from Salem. After the trials, the accusers were “lost to history” according to a Salem historian. There has only been one public apology from the accusers of the Salem Witch Trials, Anne Putnam. During the trials, she accused sixty-two people of witchcraft. She claimed that she was possessed by the devil himself. There is no current documentation of when or how Elizabeth Booth Shaw died.\n\nReferences \n\n Brooks, Rebecca. \"The Witchcraft Trial of Elizabeth Proctor\". History of Massachusetts Blog. History of Massachusetts Blog. Retrieved 20 March 2019.\n Carr, N.; Elliott, G.; Forletta, B.; Mark, D. (11 December 2016). \"The Salem Witch Trials\" (PDF). Retrieved 25 March 2019. \n Foulds, Diane (2013). Death in Salem: The Private Lives behind the 1692 Witch Hunt. Rowman & Littlefield. . Retrieved 21 March 2019.\n Hall, Kristin. \"ALICE BOOTH (b. 1678) - Salem, Essex co., MA (Second Generation - Booth Family)\". Kristin Hall. Retrieved 26 March 2019.\n Hall, Kristin. \"George Booth (d. 1682) - Lynn or Salem, Essex co., MA (First Generation - Booth Family)\". Kristin Hall. Retrieved 27 March 2019.\n \"Israel Shaw\". Israel Shaw (1680-). Family Search. Retrieved 20 March 2019.\n Jackson, Shirley (1956). The Witchcraft of Salem Village. Random House. . Retrieved 22 March 2019.\n Linder, Douglas (2007). \"The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary\". Retrieved 26 March 2019.\n Martínez Llompart, Patricio (6 December 2010). \"Reinstating Rationality within the Salem Witch Hunt: A look into the Ignoramus Indictments of 1692\" (PDF). Cornell University Department of History. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n \"Salem Births\". Vital Records of Salem, MA - Births. The Massachusetts Vital Records Project. Retrieved 19 March 2019.\n \"Salem Marriages\". Vital Records of Salem, MA - Marriages. The Massachusetts Vital Records Project. Retrieved 21 March 2019.\n T, Grace. \"The Salem Journal: The Aftermath\". The Salem Journal. Retrieved 25 March 2019.\n Wilson, Lori (1997). The Salem Witch Trials. Twenty-First Century Books. . Retrieved 20 March 2019.\n Woodward, William (1864). Records of Salem Witchcraft: Copied from the Original Documents, Volume 2. Privately printed for W. Elliot Woodward. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n\nNotes \n\n1674 births\nYear of death unknown\nAccusers in witch trials\nColonial American women\nPeople of the Salem witch trials"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,"
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | what was in the package | 4 | what was in the package that Booth gave Mary Surratt? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | binoculars, | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
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Jordan, David M. Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier's Life. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Katz, D. Mark. Witness to an Era: The Life and Photographs of Alexander Gardner: The Civil War, Lincoln, and the West. New York: Viking, 1991.
Kauffman, Michael W. American Brutus. New York: Random House, 2004.
Klement, Frank. Lincoln's Critics: The Copperheads of the North. Shippensburg, W.Va.: White Mane Books, 1999.
Kuhn, Annette. Queen of the 'B's: Ida Lupino Behind the Camera. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Larson, Kate Clifford. The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln. Basic Books, 2008.
Latimer, Christopher P. Civil Liberties and the State: A Documentary and Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood, 2011.
Leonard, Elizabeth D. Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War. New York: Norton, 2004.
MacHenry, Robert. Liberty's Women. Springfield, Mass.: G.C. Merriam Co., 1980.
Miller, Edward A. Lincoln's Abolitionist General: The Biography of David Hunter. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
Morseberger, Robert E. and Morsberger, Katharine M. Lew Wallace, Militant Romantic. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Oldroyd, Osborn H. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Flight, Pursuit, Capture, and Punishment of the Conspirators. Washington, D.C.: O.H. Oldroyd, 1901.
Ownsbey, Betty J. Alias 'Paine': Lewis Thorthon Powell, the Mystery Man of the Lincoln Conspiracy. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2006.
Phelps, Shirelle. World of Criminal Justice, Vol. 2: N-Z. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.
Phillips, Larissa. Women Civil War Spies of the Confederacy. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 2004.
Pittman, Benn. The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1865.
Rehnquist, William H. All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
Roscoe, Theodore. The Web of Conspiracy: The Complete Story of the Men Who Murdered Abraham Lincoln. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959.
Sachsman, David B.; Rushing, S. Kittrell; and Morris, Roy. Seeking A Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2009.
Schroeder-Lein, Glenna R. and Zuczek, Richard. Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2001.
Steers, Jr., Edward. Blood on the Moon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Steers, Jr., Edward. "'Let the Stain of Innocent Blood Be Removed from the Land': The Military Trial of the Lincoln Conspirators." In The Lincoln Assassination: Crime and Punishment, Myth and Memory. Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds, and Frank J. Williams, eds. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010.
Steers, Jr., Edward. The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010.
Steers, Jr., Edward. Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated With Our Greatest President. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
Steers, Jr. Edward and Holzer, Harold. The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.
Stern, Philip Van Doren. An End to Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958.
"Surratt, Mary." In The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998.
"Surratt, Mary E. Jenkins (1823–1865)." In Women in the American Civil War. Lisa Tendrich Frank, ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
"Surratt, Mary Eugenia Jenkins (1817–1865)." In Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction. Hans Louis Trefousse, ed. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
Swanson, James L. Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Swanson, James L. and Weinberg, Daniel R. Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Townsend, George Alfred. The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, Publishers, 1886.
Townsend, George Alfred. Washington, Outside and Inside: A Picture and a Narrative of the Origin, Growth, Excellencies, Abuses, Beauties, and Personages of Our Governing City. Hartford, Conn.: S.M. Betts & Co., 1874.
Trindal, Elizabeth Steger. Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy. Pelican Pub. Co., 1996.
Turner, Thomas Reed. Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
Van Doren, Charles Lincoln and McHenry, Robert. Webster's American Biographies. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1984.
Verge, Laurie. "Mary Elizabeth Surratt". In The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Watts, R.A. "Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators." Michigan History Magazine. 6:1 (1922).
Weichmann, Louis J. and Richards, A.C. A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865. New York: Knopf, 1975.
Zanca, Kenneth J.. The Catholics and Mrs. Mary Surratt: How They Responded to the Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirator. University Press of America, 2008.
External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | true | [
"Oslo Package 1 () was a political agreement and plan for introducing an urban toll ring around Oslo, Norway, and making 31 investments to road infrastructure in Oslo and Akershus. The package was approved in 1988, and toll charges were introduced in 1990. It was supplemented by Oslo Package 2, which included a similar scheme for public transport. In 2008, they were both replaced by Oslo Package 3.\n\nThe entire plan involved investments of in contemporary value, inflation adjusted to NOK 19.4 billion 2008-NOKs. Of these, NOK 4.8 were state grants, while NOK 6.2 billion was revenue from the toll roads. NOK 3.9 billion was invested in Akershus, while 7.1 billion was invested in Oslo. The company Fjellinjen was created to manage the toll collection.\n\nHistory\n\nDuring the 1970s, car traffic in Oslo greatly increased, and there was a political desire to speed up investments in motorways and tunnels in the city. This would allow increased capacity, and at the same time reduce the amount of traffic in the city streets. In particular, Rådhusgata, The City Hall Square and the areas around them were congested, and hindered people from accessing the fjord. During the 1980s, the politic environment shifted towards reduced public spending. In 1982, Minister of Transport, Inger Koppernæs from the Conservative Party, promised increased government grants to local authorities that introduced toll roads.\n\nThe first project was to build the Festning Tunnel, that would, along with the intersection at Vestbanen, allow The City Hall Square to become car free. In 1986, both the city council in Oslo and Akershus County Council set demands for a new toll ring scheme, requiring that the state grant extra funding equal to the toll charges: the krone for krone principle. This was similar to what had been agreed upon in Bergen. A report was made by the Second cabinet Willoch, where the initial project, Fjellinjen, was to receive an annual grant of NOK 230 million. While there was local resistance, the plan was popular in parliament.\n\nIn 1987, Oslo and Akershus were in agreement about the placement of the eighteen toll plazas. The ring would be located within Oslo, and there was more resistance in Oslo than in Akershus. To increase support in Oslo, 20% of the funds were to go to public transport. A committee with representatives from Oslo, Akershus, the state and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration was created, while the planning became the responsibility of the Public Roads Administration. 70% of the investments would be used in Oslo. There were three plan periods from 1990 to 2001, and additional plans for the period until 2005 were also made. Estimates showed NOK 8.1 billion in investments in 1990–2001. The project was finally approved by parliament on 10 June 1988. The goals of the project were to increase capacity by 30–50%, and to avoid increased congestion by building from the city center outwards. Without the package the investments would have taken about 30 years.\n\nThe company Fjellinjen was founded on 13 February 1986 by the Municipality of Oslo, to secure financing for the Festning Tunnel. With the 1988 decision, the company was also given the responsibility to finance the rest of the toll ring. As a result, Akershus bought 40% of the company in 1990.\n\nOslo Package 2\n\nIn 1996, the work to create a similar package for public transport was started. In particular, the Asker Line and Follo Line railways, the Ring Line and some extensions to the Oslo T-bane, and improvements to the infrastructure for buses and trams were included. The goal was to create sufficient funding for the project, which without additional funding would take 25 years to finance, so that it could be done in 10 years. The package was passed by parliament in 2000, and would insure NOK 15.6 billion in funding. In addition to public grants, each ticket in the public transport system would contribute NOK 0.75, plus a NOK 2 increase for each passing of the toll ring.\n\nOslo Package 3\n\nFollowing the termination of Oslo Package 1 in 2008, a new political compromise was created for another twenty years of investments: Oslo Package 3. It includes both investment money for road, rail and bus infrastructure, as well as money for operating public transport. The total budget is NOK 58 billion. It was passed by parliament on 13 March 2008.\n\nProjects\n\nThe main objective of the package was to move road traffic to the ring roads, reducing the amount of traffic in the city center and freeing up capacity in the main arteries. In the 1990s, a number of tunnels were built, and the ring roads improved. During the 2000s the focus was moved towards the arteries.\n\nOslo\nEuropean Route E18 through the city centre received much of the initial investments, with the Festning Tunnel opening in 1990 and the Vestbane Intersection in 1994. The City Hall Square was subsequently closed to cars. Also in the city centre were upgrades to National Road 162 in 1990–91, that included the Vaterland Tunnel. A new intersection for National Road 4 was also built at Hausmannsgate.\n\nRing 3 received funding for the Granfoss Tunnel (1992), upgrades from Sinsen to Storo (1994), as well as an intersection at Blindern (1993) and the Norwegian Radium Hospital (1997), and upgrades to the section from Tåsen to Ullevål (including the Tåsen Tunnel, 1999). National Road 190, that connects the E6 and E18, also received new upgrades, including the Teisen Intersection (with E6 in 1990) the Ekeberg Tunnel (1995). The European Route E6 received grants for the Ryen Intersection (1997), the Skullerud Intersection (1998), the Svartdal Tunnel (2000) and the Galgeberg Connection (2001).\n\nAkershus\nThe E6 was upgraded between Vinterbro and Vassum in 1993. E18 received a new intersection at Lysaker and a connection to the European Route E16 at Sandvika, including the Kjørbo Tunnel (both 1993). The following year, the Bekkestua Tunnel opened on National Road 160. Norwegian National Road 4 received new section from Skøyen to Slattum in 1993, and from Gjelleråsen to Slattum in 2003. National Road 159 was upgraded between Knatten and Lørdagsrud in 1997, and from Lørdagsrud to National Road 22 the following year. The same road got a bypass past Strømmen in 2003.\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\nRoad transport in Oslo\nRoad transport in Akershus",
"Horizon Travel or the Horizon Holiday Group was a British package holiday company no longer in existence, but was one of the first ventures into the package holiday market.\n\nFoundation\nThe company was co-founded by Vladimir Raitz and Lenny Koven on 12 October 1949. The company pioneered the first mass package holidays abroad with charter flights between Gatwick airport and Corsica in 1950, and organised the first package holiday to Palma in 1952, Lourdes in 1953, and the Costa Brava and Sardinia in 1954. In addition, the amendments made in Montreal to the Convention on International Civil Aviation on 14 June 1954 were very liberal to Spain, allowing impetus for mass tourism using charter planes.\n\nIn 1974, Horizon was taken over by the Clarksons Travel Group which went bankrupt in August that year.\n\nReferences\n\nTravel and holiday companies of the United Kingdom\nTransport companies established in 1949\nDefunct companies of the United Kingdom\n1949 establishments in England\nBritish companies disestablished in 1974\n1974 disestablishments in England\n1974 mergers and acquisitions\nBritish companies established in 1949"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,"
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | what were the binoculars for | 5 | what were the binoculars for that Booth gave to Mary Surratt? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
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Turner, Thomas Reed. Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
Van Doren, Charles Lincoln and McHenry, Robert. Webster's American Biographies. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1984.
Verge, Laurie. "Mary Elizabeth Surratt". In The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Watts, R.A. "Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators." Michigan History Magazine. 6:1 (1922).
Weichmann, Louis J. and Richards, A.C. A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865. New York: Knopf, 1975.
Zanca, Kenneth J.. The Catholics and Mrs. Mary Surratt: How They Responded to the Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirator. University Press of America, 2008.
External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | false | [
"Steiner-Optik is a manufacturer of optical equipment for the military, hunting and marine sector. The company is headquartered in Bayreuth, northern Bavaria, and has been part of the Beretta Group since 2008. Its product range includes binoculars for military and police use, rifle scope sights and spotting scopes for hunting, seafaring, outdoor and ornithology. Every year 200,000 to 250,000 binoculars are produced, of which 80% are exported.\n\nHistory \nThe company was founded in 1947 by Karl Steiner, and the first product of the company was the Steinette camera. In 1955, the company changed focus to production of binoculars. In 1965, Steiner was awarded a contract with the West German Bundeswehr, which it supplied with the service binoculars called Steiner 8×30 FERO-D12 Bundeswehr Fernglas (German Army Binoculars) between 1966 and 1972. Steiner was the first company to produce nitrogen-filled binoculars. In 1989, Steiner-Optik received by its own account until then the world's largest order for military binoculars, which included the delivery of 72,000 M22 7×50 binoculars to the US Army. Other innovations by Steiner optics included the first binoculars with bearing compass and the first binoculars with laser protection filters.\n\nProduct Range\n\nBinoculars\n\n Wildlife\n SkyHawk 4.0\n Blue Horizons \n Safari UltraSharp\n Navigator Pro\n Commander\n Commander Global\n Observer\n Ranger Extreme\n Nighthunter\n LRF 1700\n\nHunting rifle scopes\n\n Ranger\n Ranger BC\n Nighthunter\n\nTactical rifle scopes\n\n M series\n\nRed Dot Sights\n\n MRS\n\nSee also \n Swarovski Optik\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n www.steiner.de\n\nOptics manufacturing companies\nTelescope manufacturers",
"The Binoculars Building is the unofficial name of what was formerly known as the Chiat/Day Building, a commercial building built in 1991 for advertising agency Chiat/Day (now TBWA\\Chiat\\Day) located in Venice, Los Angeles, California, designed by architect Frank Gehry. The unofficial name is the result of a conflation between the building and the building-mounted public artwork Giant Binoculars (1991) by artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen on its street-facing façade. \n\nThe massive Giant Binoculars sculpture covers both a car and pedestrian entrance; the entrance to the parking garage is between the lenses of the binoculars. The building was delayed for a few years after hazardous materials were found on the building site, requiring removal. The latest tenant of this building was Google in 2011, which added two neighboring buildings as part of a major expansion to establish a larger employment presence in Los Angeles.\n\nSee also\nGoogle Arts & Culture - Giant Binoculars\nThe headquarter building of The Longaberger Company in Newark, Ohio; shaped like a picnic basket\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nArcSpace: Chiat/Day Building 1991\n\nFrank Gehry buildings\nOffice buildings completed in 1991\nCommercial buildings in Los Angeles\nLandmarks in Los Angeles\nExpressionist architecture\nPostmodern architecture in California\nVenice, Los Angeles\n1991 establishments in California"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,",
"what were the binoculars for",
"Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | how did she get caught | 6 | how did Mary Surratt get caught? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
Sources
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Buchanan, Paul D. The American Women's Rights Movement: A Chronology of Events and of Opportunities From 1600 to 2008. Boston: Branden Books, 2009.
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Zanca, Kenneth J.. The Catholics and Mrs. Mary Surratt: How They Responded to the Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirator. University Press of America, 2008.
External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | false | [
"How Did This Get Made? is a comedy podcast on the Earwolf network hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas.\n\nGenerally, How Did This Get Made? is released every two weeks. During the show's off-week, a \".5\" episode is uploaded featuring Scheer announcing the next week's movie, as well as challenges for the fans. In addition to the shows and mini-shows, the How Did This Get Made? stream hosted the first three episodes of Bitch Sesh, the podcast of previous guests Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider, in December 2015. It has also hosted episodes of its own spin-off podcast, the How Did This Get Made? Origin Stories, in which Blake Harris interviews people involved with the films covered by the main show. In December 2017, an episode was recorded for the Pee Cast Blast event, and released exclusively on Stitcher Premium.\n\nEvery episode has featured Paul Scheer as the host of the podcast. The only episode to date in which Scheer hosted remotely was The Smurfs, in which he Skyped in. Raphael has taken extended breaks from the podcast for both filming commitments and maternity leave. Mantzoukas has also missed episodes due to work, but has also Skyped in for various episodes. On the occasions that neither Raphael nor Mantzoukas are available for live appearances, Scheer calls in previous fan-favorite guests for what is known as a How Did This Get Made? All-Stars episode.\n\nList of episodes\n\nMini episodes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n List of How Did This Get Made? episodes\n\nHow Did This Get Made\nHow Did This Get Made",
"How Did This Get Made? (HDTGM) is a podcast on the Earwolf network. It is hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas. Each episode, which typically has a different guest, features the deconstruction and mockery of outlandish and bad films.\n\nFormat\nThe hosts and guest make jokes about the films as well as attempt to unscramble plots. After discussing the film, Scheer reads \"second opinions\" in the form of five-star reviews posted online by Amazon.com users. The hosts also often make recommendations on if the film is worth watching. The show is released every two weeks.\n\nDuring the show's off week a \".5\" episode (also known as a \"minisode\") is uploaded. These episodes feature Scheer's \"explanation hopeline\" where he answers questions from fans who call in, the movie for the next week is announced, Scheer reads corrections and omissions from the message board regarding last week's episode, and he opens fan mail and provides his recommendations on books, movies, TV shows etc. that he is enjoying.\n\nSome full episodes are recorded in front of a live audience and include a question and answer session and original \"second opinion\" theme songs sung by fans. Not all content from the live shows is included in the final released episode - about 30 minutes of each live show is edited out.\n\nHistory\nHow Did This Get Made? began after Scheer and Raphael saw the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Later, the pair talked to Mantzoukas about the movie and joked about the idea for starting a bad movie podcast. , Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has never been covered on the podcast.\n\nAwards\nIn 2019, How Did This Get Made? won a Webby Award in the category of Podcasts – Television & Film.\n\nIn 2020, How Did This Get Made? won an iHeartRadio award in the category of Best TV & Film Podcast.\n\nIn 2022, How Did This Get Made? won an iHeartRadio award in the category of Best TV & Film Podcast.\n\nSpinoffs\n\nHow Did This Get Made?: Origin Stories\nBetween February and September 2017, a 17-episode spin-off series of the podcast was released. Entitled How Did This Get Made?: Origin Stories, author Blake J. Harris would interview people involved with the movies discussed on the podcast. Guests on the show included director Mel Brooks, who served as executive producer on Solarbabies, and screenwriter Dan Gordon, who wrote Surf Ninjas.\n\nUnspooled\nIn May 2018, Scheer began a new podcast with Amy Nicholson titled Unspooled that is also devoted to movies. Unlike HDTGM?, however, Unspooled looks at films deemed good enough for the updated 2007 edition of the AFI Top 100. This is often referenced in How Did This Get Made? by Mantzoukas and Raphael, who are comically annoyed at how they were not invited to host the podcast, instead being subjected to the bad films that HDTGM covers.\n\nHow Did This Get Played?\nIn June 2019, the Earwolf network launched the podcast How Did This Get Played?, hosted by Doughboys host Nick Wiger and former Saturday Night Live writer Heather Anne Campbell. The podcast is positioned as the video game equivalent of HDTGM?, where Wiger and Campbell review widely panned video games.\n\nEpisodes\n\nAdaptation\nThe program was adapted in France in 2014 under the title 2 heures de perdues (http://www.2hdp.fr/ and available on Spotify and iTunes), a podcast in which several friends meet to analyze bad films in the same style (mainly American, French, and British films). The show then ends with a reading of comments found on AlloCiné (biggest French-speaking cinema website) or Amazon.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n How Did This Get Made on Earwolf\n\nAudio podcasts\nEarwolf\nFilm and television podcasts\nComedy and humor podcasts\n2010 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,",
"what were the binoculars for",
"Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.",
"how did she get caught",
"I don't know."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | how did booth meet her | 7 | how did booth meet Mary Surratt ? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
Sources
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External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | false | [
"Marian Billups Booth (4 May 1864 – 5 January 1937), better known as Marie Booth, was the third daughter of Catherine and William Booth, the founders of the Salvation Army.\n\nUnusually for the Victorian era, all of William and Catherine Booth's children survived into adulthood. Marie, however, had an accident at an early age that caused her to have convulsions thus making her an invalid; therefore, she was the only one of the Booth's children who did not regularly serve in the Salvation Army. She was, however, given the permanent rank of staff captain. \n\nHer sister Evangeline Booth often took care of her, and is said to have got into trouble for reprimanding a governess who had scolded Marie for being slow with her lessons. Marie was often pictured at family occasions such as her father's funeral in 1912. \n\nMarian Billups Booth died in 1937 aged 72 and is buried with her parents in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\n1864 births\n1937 deaths\nEnglish Salvationists\nBurials at Abney Park Cemetery\nMarie",
"Elizabeth Booth was born in 1674 and was one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. She grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, as the second eldest of ten children. When she was sixteen she was accused of being a witch. When she was eighteen, she began accusing people (ten people on record) of practicing witchcraft, including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Proctor, William Proctor, Benjamin Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd. Five of these people were executed due to Booth's testimony (John Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, and Wilmont Redd). Elizabeth Proctor would have been executed as well if she was not pregnant. After the Witch Trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695, and had two children named Israel (born December 16, 1698) and Susanna (born September 29, 1703). Booth's death date is unknown.\n\nLife before the trial \nBooth was born in 1674 in the Salem Village to George Booth Sr. and Alice Temple. Her parents were married some time before 1671 in Lynn/Salem, Massachusetts. She was the second eldest of ten siblings who included: George Booth Jr., Alice Booth, Benjamin Booth, Bridget Booth, Mary Booth, Rebecca Booth, Susanna Booth, and Zachariah Booth. Along with her ten siblings she had two in-law siblings. Booth was baptized on May 19, 1678, at age five, in Salem, Massachusetts along with several of her siblings: Bridget Booth, Rebecca Booth, and Zachariah Booth. When Booth was eight years old, her biological father, a woodworker, died. Her mother remarried and her stepfather died only four years later. Finally, at age eighteen, Booth claimed to be she was afflicted by witchcraft and became one of the six accusers of the Salem Witch Trials.\n\nBooth's role in the Salem Witch Trials\n\nAccusations against Booth \nBooth is remembered in American colonial history for her role in the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Commotion about witches in Salem had begun in January 1692. Witchcraft was first suspected within the Parris household, a family residing Salem Village. Reverend Samuel Parris had never completed his education at Harvard University and settled for the ministerial position in Salem. At the time, Reverend Parris had a slave, named Tituba working within in his household. There were rumors that she told the girls stories and \"did other sorts of practices\". After this, Betty Paris and Abilgail Williams, nine and eleven years old, began to experiment with white magic.\n\nIn February 1692, both Paris and Williams began acting suspicious, catching the attention of many. The girls fell into trances, crouched in the corner of rooms, saying things that were not sensible, and threw \"fits\" consisting of screaming and epileptic symptoms. \"Their bodies supposedly twisted as though their bones were made of putty.\" This behavior spread to six other girls in Salem Village, one being the sixteen year old Booth, making her one of the accusers. An assortment of doctors came to Salem to examine the girls, but nothing was concluded from their behavior. Then, Dr. William Griggs diagnosed the symptoms as stemming from witchcraft. The girls continued to have these symptoms, having episodes of \"fits\" and then afterward being perfectly fine. \"Asked what or who had caused them to suffer so, they could not answer. Authorities began questioning people exhibiting suspicious behavior to determine if they may have caused or influenced the condition of the afflicted girls. Tituba was one of those questioned and she confessed she knew of four witches and had knowledge of the behavior and actions the witches had taken. She confessed that she herself had attempted to murder children while under the influence of a specter. This confession made the girl's claim of seeing specters valid, and vastly aided the witch trials.\n\nAccusations against others \nBooth, at age eighteen, was one of the six accusers in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, claiming that she was afflicted by witchcraft. Throughout the trials, there are records indicating that she accused ten people of witchcraft. Five of those accused are known to be executed directly due to her testimonies. Those she accused include: John and Elizabeth Proctor, their fifteen-year-old daughter Sarah, William and Benjamin Proctor (two of their sons), Woody Proctor, Giles Corey and Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd.\n\nSpecifics of trials\n\nHow the trials went \nBooth's most significant accusation was against John and Elizabeth Proctor. She then went on to accuse their daughter, Sarah Proctor. Booth's reputation stemmed from being one of the accused to becoming the accuser and using her experience against others. The records show that twenty-five people in Salem, MA were either executed or sentenced to life in jail. During the trials, various tests were performed on the accused to determine if they were in fact witches. One commonly used test was the \"touching test.\" During this test an affected person would be required to throw a \"tantrum\", and then the accused had to touch the victim. If the victim calmed after being touched, the accused was a witch because it was believed \"the 'evil toxins' that had tormented the afflicted soul returned back to the host.\" A lot of people did not want to come forward, so the courts often used a form of torture to get a confession. \"Dunking\" was a common form. The accused would be continuously dunked underwater until the court received a confession.\n\nSpecific testimonies \nBooth's historical legacy as one of the six accusers in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials began on May 20, 1692, when she accused John and Elizabeth Proctor of committing the murders of a minimum of four people. She testified that the specters of those murdered had come to tell her they had been killed by the Proctors and begged Elizabeth to stop the murders. Her testimony, aided by her sister Alice's and her mother's support, convicted the Proctors of witchcraft and both were sentenced to be executed. However, Elizabeth Proctor was pregnant with her sixth child and she was placed in jail instead to await the birth of her child.\nOnce the trials ended, Elizabeth Proctor was reprieved and released.\n\nFollowing the trial of Elizabeth and John Proctor, Booth accused Goody Proctor of murder/witchcraft. She testified that her deceased stepfather had come to her and informed her that Goody had murdered him. Later, Booth would accuse Giles Corey of \"acting as a ringleader\" when \"fifty specters had flooded into their rural home for a devil's communion of wine and bread.\" He spent five months in jail bound by chains before he was crushed to death. On June 8, 1692, Elizabeth testified that Martha Corey (Giles Corey's wife) had murdered Thomas Goold Senyer. She said that “Thomas Goold Senyer came to her and told her that Martha said she would murder him if he did not do well by Goodman Parker's children.” On September 22, 1692, just three days after her husband's execution, Martha Cory was convicted and hanged. She was one of the last people to be executed during the Salem Witch Trials. On that same day, Wilmont Redd was also executed for the affliction of witchcraft towards Booth despite most evidence being speculation and not factual. Booth also claimed that Job Trooney tried to afflict her and others with witchcraft. Along with Booth's testimony, another accuser, Susannah Sheldon, also testified against Job Trooney. They claimed on June 7, 1692, he made eight other people in the town \"cry and want revenge\". Their testimony also claimed that “he looked as red as blood\". However, the jury ruled that Sheldon wasn't a credible source due to her testimony being \"overly visual and dramatic\". That ruling also affected Booth's testimony against Tooney; meaning that he could not be convicted due to lack of substantial evidence.\n\nLife after the trial\n\nMarriage and children \nBooth grew up in a home where both her father and stepfather died in the span of four years. Her father died when she was just eight years old. Her mother, Alice, remarried to George Booth, but just four years after their marriage, he died. Elizabeth grew up having to help her mother provide for the family, which was now her mother Alice, her younger brother George, and younger sister Alice. Booth worried about her marital status and if she would have any prospects after these two tragedies occurred in her family, so soon after one another. Two years after the witchcraft trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695. She was twenty two years old and the two were married in Salem, Essex co., MA. Israel Shaw was born in July 1680, his parents were William Shaw I and Elizabeth Fraile. He was the youngest of four siblings. Booth and Israel Shaw had two children. Their first, a son, Israel was born on December 16, 1698. They subsequently had daughter Susanna, born five years later on September 29, 1703. There is no documentation regarding their children's deaths, marriage, or offspring.\n\nIt was thought that after the trials, the six accusers married, changed their names, and moved away from Salem. However, it has not been confirmed that all six girls moved away from Salem. After the trials, the accusers were “lost to history” according to a Salem historian. There has only been one public apology from the accusers of the Salem Witch Trials, Anne Putnam. During the trials, she accused sixty-two people of witchcraft. She claimed that she was possessed by the devil himself. There is no current documentation of when or how Elizabeth Booth Shaw died.\n\nReferences \n\n Brooks, Rebecca. \"The Witchcraft Trial of Elizabeth Proctor\". History of Massachusetts Blog. History of Massachusetts Blog. Retrieved 20 March 2019.\n Carr, N.; Elliott, G.; Forletta, B.; Mark, D. (11 December 2016). \"The Salem Witch Trials\" (PDF). Retrieved 25 March 2019. \n Foulds, Diane (2013). Death in Salem: The Private Lives behind the 1692 Witch Hunt. Rowman & Littlefield. . Retrieved 21 March 2019.\n Hall, Kristin. \"ALICE BOOTH (b. 1678) - Salem, Essex co., MA (Second Generation - Booth Family)\". Kristin Hall. Retrieved 26 March 2019.\n Hall, Kristin. \"George Booth (d. 1682) - Lynn or Salem, Essex co., MA (First Generation - Booth Family)\". Kristin Hall. Retrieved 27 March 2019.\n \"Israel Shaw\". Israel Shaw (1680-). Family Search. Retrieved 20 March 2019.\n Jackson, Shirley (1956). The Witchcraft of Salem Village. Random House. . Retrieved 22 March 2019.\n Linder, Douglas (2007). \"The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary\". Retrieved 26 March 2019.\n Martínez Llompart, Patricio (6 December 2010). \"Reinstating Rationality within the Salem Witch Hunt: A look into the Ignoramus Indictments of 1692\" (PDF). Cornell University Department of History. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n \"Salem Births\". Vital Records of Salem, MA - Births. The Massachusetts Vital Records Project. Retrieved 19 March 2019.\n \"Salem Marriages\". Vital Records of Salem, MA - Marriages. The Massachusetts Vital Records Project. Retrieved 21 March 2019.\n T, Grace. \"The Salem Journal: The Aftermath\". The Salem Journal. Retrieved 25 March 2019.\n Wilson, Lori (1997). The Salem Witch Trials. Twenty-First Century Books. . Retrieved 20 March 2019.\n Woodward, William (1864). Records of Salem Witchcraft: Copied from the Original Documents, Volume 2. Privately printed for W. Elliot Woodward. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n\nNotes \n\n1674 births\nYear of death unknown\nAccusers in witch trials\nColonial American women\nPeople of the Salem witch trials"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,",
"what were the binoculars for",
"Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.",
"how did she get caught",
"I don't know.",
"how did booth meet her",
"On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | was john her father | 8 | was john Mary Surratt's father? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
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External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | false | [
"Alicia Tindal Palmer (1763 – 1822) was a British writer.\n\nLife\nPalmer was born in Bath in 1763. Her father, John, was the actor known as \"Gentleman Palmer\" and her mother was Hannah Mary Pritchard. Her father's career as an actor was overshadowed by another John Palmer who was no relation whilst his mother had been an actress but her own mother, and Palmer's grandmother, was the more well known Hannah Pritchard.\n\nPalmer's father died in an accident when he was given a mistaken prescription in 1768. Her mother retired from the stage having inherited property from her mother. She remarried a Mr Lloyd.\n\nPalmer's first three volume novel, The Husband and Lover was published in 1809. It was well received, whereas her next novel received an unusual review. Her next story was a moral tale titled The Daughters of Isenberg: a Bavarian Romance and it received a very poor review from John Gifford of the Quarterly Review. Moreover, Gifford claimed that he had been given three pounds as a bribe to give a good review.\n\nHer next book was published in 1811 and her final work was a biography about John Sobieski. It was called Authentic Memoirs of the Life of John Sobieski, King of Poland and it was published in 1815.\n\nPalmer died in 1822.\n\nReferences\n\n1763 births\n1822 deaths\nPeople from Bath, Somerset\n19th-century British novelists\nBritish biographers\n19th-century British women writers\n19th-century British writers\nWomen biographers",
"was an Ainu waka poet and evangelist.\n\nLife \n\nYaeko Batchelor was born on June 13, 1884, in Usu, Date City, Hokkaido. Her name was entered into the family register as , and her childhood name was Fuchi. Her father was , a member of a powerful Ainu family, and whose Ainu name was . Her mother was named . Among Yaeko's five siblings was the Anglican pastor . Yaeko's father deeply trusted the Anglican missionary John Batchelor, and allowed Yaeko to be baptized. However, when Yaeko was 11, her father died. When she was 13, she set out for Sapporo to attend the Ainu Girls' School that Batchelor operated, and later advanced to St. Hilda's School in Tokyo.\n\nIn 1906, when Yaeko was 22, she was adopted by John Batchelor and his wife Louisa. January in 1909 Yaeko accompanied the pair on a trip to England, and was commissioned as a lay evangelist by the Archbishop of Canterbury. She pursued this mission in Biratori and Noboribetsu. In 1912, she went with her adopted father to Sakhalin to spread her faith there.\n\nIn 1931, a collection of her tanka poems entitled was published. Her adoptive mother Louisa died in 1936, and was buried in Maruyama Cemetery in Sapporo. Her adoptive father John Batchelor died in 1944. Yaeko stored about 250 of his books and some of his other items in her home after his death.\n\nYaeko Batchelor died on 29 April 1962, in Kyoto while visiting there, at the age of 78.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n \n\nJapanese Ainu people\nJapanese women poets\nPeople from Date, Hokkaido\nJapanese Anglicans\n1884 births\n1962 deaths\n20th-century Japanese women writers\n20th-century Japanese poets"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,",
"what were the binoculars for",
"Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.",
"how did she get caught",
"I don't know.",
"how did booth meet her",
"On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth.",
"was john her father",
"I don't know."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 9 | Aside from Mary Surratt's relationship with Booth Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
Sources
Boritt, G.S. and Forness, Norman O. The Historian's Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1996.
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External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | 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"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,",
"what were the binoculars for",
"Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.",
"how did she get caught",
"I don't know.",
"how did booth meet her",
"On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth.",
"was john her father",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | what did she do there | 10 | what did Mary Surratt do at the Surratt tavern on April 11th? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
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Steers, Jr. Edward and Holzer, Harold. The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.
Stern, Philip Van Doren. An End to Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958.
"Surratt, Mary." In The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998.
"Surratt, Mary E. Jenkins (1823–1865)." In Women in the American Civil War. Lisa Tendrich Frank, ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
"Surratt, Mary Eugenia Jenkins (1817–1865)." In Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction. Hans Louis Trefousse, ed. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
Swanson, James L. Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Swanson, James L. and Weinberg, Daniel R. Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.
Townsend, George Alfred. The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, Publishers, 1886.
Townsend, George Alfred. Washington, Outside and Inside: A Picture and a Narrative of the Origin, Growth, Excellencies, Abuses, Beauties, and Personages of Our Governing City. Hartford, Conn.: S.M. Betts & Co., 1874.
Trindal, Elizabeth Steger. Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy. Pelican Pub. Co., 1996.
Turner, Thomas Reed. Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
Van Doren, Charles Lincoln and McHenry, Robert. Webster's American Biographies. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1984.
Verge, Laurie. "Mary Elizabeth Surratt". In The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Watts, R.A. "Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators." Michigan History Magazine. 6:1 (1922).
Weichmann, Louis J. and Richards, A.C. A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865. New York: Knopf, 1975.
Zanca, Kenneth J.. The Catholics and Mrs. Mary Surratt: How They Responded to the Trial and Execution of the Lincoln Conspirator. University Press of America, 2008.
External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | true | [
"Follow Me! is a series of television programmes produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the BBC in the late 1970s to provide a crash course in the English language. It became popular in many overseas countries as a first introduction to English; in 1983, one hundred million people watched the show in China alone, featuring Kathy Flower.\n\nThe British actor Francis Matthews hosted and narrated the series.\n\nThe course consists of sixty lessons. Each lesson lasts from 12 to 15 minutes and covers a specific lexis. The lessons follow a consistent group of actors, with the relationships between their characters developing during the course.\n\nFollow Me! actors\n Francis Matthews\n Raymond Mason\n David Savile\n Ian Bamforth\n Keith Alexander\n Diane Mercer\n Jane Argyle\n Diana King\n Veronica Leigh\n Elaine Wells\n Danielle Cohn\n Lashawnda Bell\n\nEpisodes \n \"What's your name\"\n \"How are you\"\n \"Can you help me\"\n \"Left, right, straight ahead\"\n \"Where are they\"\n \"What's the time\"\n \"What's this What's that\"\n \"I like it very much\"\n \"Have you got any wine\"\n \"What are they doing\"\n \"Can I have your name, please\"\n \"What does she look like\"\n \"No smoking\"\n \"It's on the first floor\"\n \"Where's he gone\"\n \"Going away\"\n \"Buying things\"\n \"Why do you like it\"\n \"What do you need\"\n \"I sometimes work late\"\n \"Welcome to Britain\"\n \"Who's that\"\n \"What would you like to do\"\n \"How can I get there?\"\n \"Where is it\"\n \"What's the date\"\n \"Whose is it\"\n \"I enjoy it\"\n \"How many and how much\"\n \"What have you done\"\n \"Haven't we met before\"\n \"What did you say\"\n \"Please stop\"\n \"How can I get to Brightly\"\n \"Where can I get it\"\n \"There's a concert on Wednesday\"\n \"What's it like\"\n \"What do you think of him\"\n \"I need someone\"\n \"What were you doing\"\n \"What do you do\"\n \"What do you know about him\"\n \"You shouldn't do that\"\n \"I hope you enjoy your holiday\"\n \"Where can I see a football match\"\n \"When will it be ready\"\n \"Where did you go\"\n \"I think it's awful\"\n \"A room with a view\"\n \"You'll be ill\"\n \"I don't believe in strikes\"\n \"They look tired\"\n \"Would you like to\"\n \"Holiday plans\"\n \"The second shelf on the left\"\n \"When you are ready\"\n \"Tell them about Britain\"\n \"I liked everything\"\n \"Classical or modern\"\n \"Finale\"\n\nReferences \n\n BBC article about the series in China\n\nExternal links \n Follow Me – Beginner level \n Follow Me – Elementary level\n Follow Me – Intermediate level\n Follow Me – Advanced level\n\nAdult education television series\nEnglish-language education television programming",
"There's a Girl in My Hammerlock is a 1991 young adult novel by Jerry Spinelli.\n\nPlot\nMaisie Potter tries out for the wrestling team in her junior high to get close to a boy she likes, but she soon finds out that what she really loves is the sport of wrestling.\n\nMaisie initially wants to be on the cheerleading squad, but she did not make the cut during tryouts. She is infatuated with a boy at her school, Eric Delong, and will do anything to be near him. Because he tries out for the wrestling team, Maisie decides to try out too. She makes the team but discovers that wrestling is a lot harder than she initially thought. She wins some of her matches but most of her opponents forfeit because they don't think it's right for a girl to wrestle a boy. She has to decide if she should do things that other people want her to do or things that she truly wants to do and is good at.\n\nExternal links\nAuthor Jerry Spinelli's homepage\n\n1991 American novels\nNovels by Jerry Spinelli\nAmerican sports novels\nAmerican young adult novels"
] |
[
"Mary Surratt",
"Conspiracy",
"What conspiracy was she involved in",
"conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.",
"Did she have co-conspirators",
"Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.",
"Did she help booth",
"Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package,",
"what was in the package",
"binoculars,",
"what were the binoculars for",
"Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.",
"how did she get caught",
"I don't know.",
"how did booth meet her",
"On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth.",
"was john her father",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern.",
"what did she do there",
"She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor."
] | C_244bdffa426348c8bc3b8688c8fd746c_1 | what was she really doing there | 11 | what was Mary Surratt really doing at the Surratt tavern on April 11th? | Mary Surratt | Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt, Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request. George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days. He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times. As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth. (Booth and Herold would pick up the rifles and binoculars that evening, as they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination.) Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before she left. CANNOTANSWER | However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. | Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the US federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and is controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried, but due to statute of limitations, was not convicted.
Born in Maryland in the 1820s, Surratt converted to Catholicism at a young age and remained a practicing Catholic for the rest of her life. She wed John Harrison Surratt in 1840 and had three children with him. An entrepreneur, John became the owner of a tavern, an inn, and a hotel. The Surratts were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America and often hosted fellow Confederate sympathizers at their tavern.
Upon her husband's death in 1862, Surratt had to manage his estate. Tired of doing so without help, Surratt moved to her townhouse in Washington, D.C., which she then ran as a boardinghouse. There, she was introduced to John Wilkes Booth. Booth visited the boardinghouse numerous times, as did George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Shortly before killing Lincoln, Booth spoke with Surratt and handed her a package containing binoculars for one of her tenants, John M. Lloyd.
After Lincoln was assassinated, Surratt was arrested, then tried by a military tribunal the following month, along with the other conspirators. She was convicted primarily due to the testimonies of Lloyd, who said that she told him to have the "shooting irons" ready, and Louis J. Weichmann, who testified about Surratt's relationships with Confederate groups and sympathizers. Five of the nine judges at her trial asked that Surratt be granted clemency by President Andrew Johnson because of her age and gender. Johnson did not grant her clemency, though accounts differ as to whether or not he received the clemency request. Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865, and later buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She has since been portrayed in film, theater, and television.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (baptismal name, Maria Eugenia) was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Anne (née Webster) Jenkins on a tobacco plantation near the southern Maryland town of Waterloo (now known as Clinton). Sources differ as to whether she was born in 1820 or 1823. There is uncertainty as to the month as well, but most sources say May.
She had two brothers: John Jenkins, born in 1822, and James Jenkins, born in 1825. Her father died in the fall of 1825 when Mary was either two or five years old, and Mary's mother then inherited their property (originally part of the His Lordship's Kindness estate).
Although her father was a nondenominational Protestant and her mother Episcopalian, Surratt was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girls' boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 25, 1835. Mary's maternal aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, was a Catholic, which may have influenced where she was sent to school. Within two years, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism and adopted the baptismal name of Maria Eugenia. She stayed at the Academy for Young Ladies for four years, leaving in 1839, when the school closed. She remained an observant Catholic for the rest of her life.
Married life
Mary Jenkins met John Harrison Surratt in 1839, when she was 16 or 19 and he was 26. His family had settled in Maryland in the late 1600s. An orphan, he was adopted by Richard and Sarah Neale of Washington, D.C., a wealthy couple who owned a farm. The Neales divided their farm among their children, and Surratt inherited a portion of it. His background has been described by historian Kate Clifford Larson as "questionable", and he had fathered at least one child out of wedlock. They wed in August 1840. John converted to Roman Catholicism prior to the marriage, and the couple may have wed at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. John purchased a mill in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the couple moved there. The Surratts had three children over the next few years: Isaac (born June 2, 1841), Elizabeth Susanna (nicknamed "Anna", born January 1, 1843), and John, Jr. (born April 1844).
In 1843, John Surratt purchased from his adoptive father of land straddling the DC/Maryland border, a parcel named "Foxhall" (approximately the area between Wheeler Road and Owens Road today). Richard Neale died in September 1843, and a month later, John purchased of land adjoining Foxhall. John and Mary Surratt and their children moved back to John's childhood home in the District of Columbia in 1845 to help John's mother run the Neale farm. But Sarah Neale fell ill and died in August 1845, having shortly before her death deeded the remainder of the Neale farm to John. Mary Surratt became involved in raising funds to build St. Ignatius Church in Oxon Hill (it was constructed in 1850), but John was increasingly unhappy with his wife's religious activities. His behavior deteriorated over the next few years. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and his temper was increasingly volatile and violent.
In 1851, the Neale farmhouse burned to the ground (an escaped family slave was suspected of setting the blaze). John found work on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mary moved with her children into the home of her cousin, Thomas Jenkins, in nearby Clinton. Within a year, John purchased of farmland near what is now Clinton, and by 1853, he constructed a tavern and an inn there. Mary initially refused to move herself and the children into the new residence. She took up residence on the old Neale farm, but John sold both the Neale farm and Foxhall in May 1853 to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him in December.
With the money he earned from the tavern and sale of his other property, on December 6, 1853, John Surratt bought a townhouse at 541 H Street in Washington, D.C., and began renting it out to tenants. In 1854, John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and called it Surratt's Hotel.
The area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville that same year. Travelers could take Branch Road (now Branch Avenue) north into Washington, D.C.; Piscataway Road southwest to Piscataway; or Woodyard Road northeast to Upper Marlboro. Although Surrattsville was a well-known crossroads, the community did not amount to much: just the tavern, a post office (inside the tavern), a forge, and a dozen or so houses (some of them log cabins). John Surratt was the hamlet's first postmaster.
He expanded his family's holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses. Over the next few years, Surratt acquired or built a carriage house, corn crib, general store, forge, granary, gristmill, stable, tobacco curing house, and wheelwright's shop. The family had enough money to send all three children to nearby Roman Catholic boarding schools. Isaac and John Jr. attended the school at St. Thomas Manor, and Anna enrolled at the Academy for Young Ladies (Mary's alma mater). The family's debts continued to mount, however, and John Sr.'s drinking worsened. John sold another of land in 1856 to pay debts. By 1857, Surratt had sold all but of the family's formerly extensive holdings (which represented about half the he had originally owned). Most of the family's slaves were also sold to pay debts. Still, his alcoholism worsened. In 1858, Mary wrote a letter to her local priest, telling him that Surratt was drunk every single day. In 1860, St. Thomas Manor School closed, and Isaac found work in Baltimore, Maryland. The Surratts sold off another of land, which enabled Anna to remain at the Academy for Young Ladies and for John Jr. to enroll at St. Charles College, Maryland (a Catholic seminary and boarding school in Ellicott's Mills). The couple also borrowed money that same year against their townhouse in Washington, DC, and at some point used the property as collateral for a $1,000 loan.
Civil War and widowhood
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts were Confederate sympathizers, and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. The Surratt tavern was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary had "de facto" knowledge of this. Confederate scout and spy Thomas Nelson Conrad visited Surratt's boarding house before and during the Civil War.
On March 7, 1861, three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States, Isaac left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings, the courier network remained intact.
John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, and several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty, but John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, he sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application caused federal agents to be suspicious about his family's loyalties to the Union. On November 17, 1863, he was dismissed as postmaster for disloyalty.
The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann, a friend of John Jr. from St. Charles College, observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. Mary was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.
On October 1, 1864, she took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, wide, deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, had two large rooms, used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor had a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms: two in the front and a larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room, occupied by a servant. Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she wanted only lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements, she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."
Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definite proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say that on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up," perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also, in the short term, would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse, money that she did not have.
Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city and concluded that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. During her time in the city, Surratt tried to keep her daughter away from what she felt were negative influences. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865.
John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865. That act may have additional implications. A traitor's property could be seized, and John's spy knowledge was certainly his motivation for relinquishing his title to the houses and land. Mary may have known of his motivation as well or at least suspected. If she did, she would have possessed at least de facto knowledge of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy
Louis J. Weichmann moved into Surratt's boarding house on November 1, 1864. On December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Surratt Jr. to John Wilkes Booth. Booth recruited John Jr. into his conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Confederate agents began frequenting the boarding house. Booth visited the boarding house many times over the next few months, sometimes at Mary's request.
George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. Atzerodt, a friend of both John Jr. and Booth and a co-conspirator in the plot to kidnap Lincoln, visited the boarding house several times in the first two months of 1865. He stayed at the Surratt boarding house in February 1865 (for one night or several, sources differ), but he proved to be a heavy drinker, and Surratt evicted him after just a few days.
He continued to visit the townhouse frequently afterward, however. Powell posed as a Baptist preacher and stayed at the boarding house for three days in March 1865. David Herold also called at the home several times.
As part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln in March 1865, John, Atzerodt, and Herold hid two Spencer carbines, ammunition, and some other supplies at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville. On April 11, Mary Surratt rented a carriage and drove to the Surratt tavern. She said that she made the trip to collect a debt owed her by a former neighbor. However, according to her tenant, John Lloyd, Surratt told him to get the "shooting irons" ready to be picked up. On April 14, Surratt said that she would once again visit the family tavern in Surrattsville to collect a debt. Shortly before she left the city, Booth visited the boarding house and spoke privately with her. He gave her a package, later found to contain binoculars, for Lloyd to pick up later that evening. Surratt did so and, according to Lloyd, again told Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pickup and handed him a wrapped package from Booth.
Booth's plan was to assassinate Lincoln and have Atzerodt kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Powell kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth killed Lincoln, Atzerodt never attempted to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward repeatedly but failed to murder him. As they fled the city after Lincoln's assassination, Booth and Herold picked up the rifles and binoculars from Surratt's tavern. Lloyd repaired a broken spring on Surratt's wagon before they left.
Arrest and incarceration
Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.
On April 17, a Surratt neighbor told U.S. military authorities that he overheard one of the Surratt's servants saying that three men had come to the house on the night of Lincoln's assassination and that one of the men had mentioned Booth in a theater. (The servant was mistaken about the date, as John Surratt, Jr. had indeed been in Elmira, New York, on a mission for a Confederate general). Other pieces of information also mentioned the boarding house as a key meeting place of the possible conspirators. Either Colonel Henry H. Wells, Provost Marshal (head of the military police) of the District of Columbia, or General Christopher C. Augur told Colonel Henry Steel Olcott to arrest everyone in the house.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boarding house again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. could not be found, but after a search of the house, the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, hidden behind another photograph, pictures of Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, a pistol, a mold for making bullets, and percussion caps. As Mary was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, Powell appeared at her door in disguise. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell claimed that he was a laborer hired by Surratt to dig a ditch the next morning. The discrepancy and Powell's unusually well-groomed appearance, quite unlike a ditch-digger, prompted his arrest. He was later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
After her arrest, she was held at an annex to the Old Capitol Prison before being transferred to the Washington Arsenal on April 30. Two armed guards stood before the door to her cell from the beginning of her imprisonment until her death. Her cell, while airy and larger than the others, was sparsely furnished, with a straw mattress, table, wash basin, chair, and a bucket. Food was served four times a day, always of bread; salt pork, beef, or beef soup; and coffee or water. The other arrested conspirators had their heads enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. Sources disagree as to whether Surratt was also forced to wear it. Although the others wore iron manacles on their feet and ankles, she was not manacled. (Rumors to the contrary were raised by reporters at the trial who could not see her or "heard" the clank of chains about her feet. The rumors were repeatedly investigated and denied.) She began to suffer menstrual bleeding and became weak during her detention. She was given a rocking chair and allowed visits from her daughter, Anna. She and Powell received the most attention from the press. The Northern press was also highly critical of her, claiming that she had a "criminal face" due to her small mouth and dark eyes.
John Surratt Jr. was in Elmira at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general. After learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trial
The trial for the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. Historians have conflicting views regarding Surratt's innocence. Historian Laurie Verge commented, "Only in the case of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd is there as much controversy as to the guilt or innocence of one of the defendants." Lincoln assassination scholar Thomas Reed Turner says that of the eight people accused of plotting to kill Lincoln, the case against Surratt remains "the most controversial... at that time and since."
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was made into a courtroom, and the prisoners were brought into the room through a side door, which prevented them from passing by or being harassed by spectators. Surratt was given special considerations during the trial because of her illness and gender. In the courtroom, she sat apart from the other prisoners. Sources differ as to whether an armed guard sat on either side of her, as was done for other prisoners during the trial. While the others wore wrist and ankle manacles in the courtroom, she did not. She was also permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil to hide her face from spectators. As her illness worsened during the trial, she was moved to a larger and more comfortable prison cell.
Surratt was charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants. The federal government initially attempted to find legal counsel for her and the others, but almost no attorneys were willing to take the job for fear they would be accused of disloyalty to the Union. Surratt retained Reverdy Johnson as her legal counsel. A member of the military commission trying the conspirators challenged Johnson's right to defend Surratt, as he had objected to requiring loyalty oaths from voters in the 1864 presidential election. After much discussion, this objection was withdrawn, but damage had been done to his influence, and he did not attend most of the court sessions. Most of Surratt's legal defense was presented by two other lawyers: Frederick Aiken and John Wesley Clampitt.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie Surratt to the conspiracy. Powell's arrival at her boarding house, three days after the president's murder, was critical evidence against her, the government argued. The prosecution presented nine witnesses, but most of their case rested on the testimony of just two men: John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann. Lloyd testified on May 13 and 15, 1865 on the hiding of the carbines and other supplies at the tavern in March and the two conversations he had with her in which she told him to get the "shooting irons" ready. Weichmann's testimony was important, as it established an intimate relationship between her and the other conspirators.
Weichmann testified May 16 to 19 and said that he had resided at the boarding house since November 1864. He had seen or overheard John Jr. meeting and talking with Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell many times over the past four and a half months. Weichmann had driven Surratt to the tavern on April 11 and 14, confirmed that she and Lloyd had spent much time in private conversation, testified that he saw Booth give her the package of binoculars, and attested that she had turned the package over to Lloyd. Weichmann also testified at length about the Surratt family's ties to the Confederate spy and courier rings operating in the area and their relationships with Atzerodt and Powell. He also testified about the December 23 meeting with Booth and John (which he also attended) and their subsequent meeting with Booth at Booth's room at the National Hotel. Finally, he told the military tribunal about the general excitement in the boarding house in March 1865 after the failed attempt to kidnap Lincoln.
Other prosecution witnesses reinforced Weichmann's testimony. Lodger Honora Fitzpatrick confirmed visits by Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell to the boarding house. Emma Offut, Lloyd's sister-in-law, testified that she saw (but did not hear) Surratt speaking for long periods of time with Lloyd on April 11 and 14. Government agents testified about their arrest of Surratt, Powell's arrival, and her denial that she knew Powell. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boarding house after Lincoln's murder left a bad impression of her. Surratt's refusal (or failure) to recognize him also weighed against her. The agents also testified about their search of the house, and the evidence (the photographs, the weapons, etc.) discovered there. Lloyd's testimony was the most important for the prosecution's case, for it indicated that she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days before Lincoln's death. The prosecution rested its case on May 22.
The defense strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses: Lloyd and Weichmann. It also wished to show that she was loyal to the Union, her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and she had not been aware of Booth's plans. There were 31 witnesses who testified for the defense. George H. Calvert testified that he had pressed Surratt to pay a debt, Bennett Gwynn said Surratt had sought payment from John Nothey to satisfy the Calvert debt, and Nothey agreed that he had received a letter from Surratt for him to appear at the tavern on April 11 to pay what was owed. Several witnesses impugned Lloyd's character by testifying about his alcoholism, while others said he was too intoxicated on the day of Lincoln's assassination to remember that day clearly. Augustus Howell, a Confederate agent, testified Weichmann was an untrustworthy witness, as he had sought to become a Confederate spy himself. (The prosecution had attempted to show that Howell was a Confederate spy and should not be trusted.)
Anna Surratt testified that it was Weichmann who had brought Atzerodt into the boarding house, that the photograph of Booth was hers, and that she owned photographs of Union political and military leaders. Anna denied ever overhearing any discussions of disloyal activities or ideas in the boarding house, and that Booth's visits to the house were always short. Anna explained her mother's failure to recognize Powell by asserting she could not see well. Augusta Howell, a former servant, and Honora Fitzpatrick, a former slave, testified to Mary's poor eyesight as well. The former servant and the former slave both said Surratt had given Union soldiers food. Numerous witnesses were called at the end of the defense's case to testify to her loyalty to the Union, her deep Christian faith, and her kindness. During the prosecution's rebuttal, government lawyers called four witnesses to the stand, who testified as to Weichmann's unimpeachable character.
Johnson and Aiken presented the closing arguments for the defense. Johnson attacked the jurisdiction of a military tribunal over civilians, as had Mudd's attorney. Aiken also challenged the court's jurisdiction. He also reiterated that Lloyd and Weichmann were unreliable witnesses and that the evidence against her was all circumstantial. The only evidence linking Surratt to the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, he said, came from Lloyd and Weichmann, and neither man was telling the truth. (Dorothy Kunhardt has written that there is evidence the latter's perjured testimony was suborned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.)
Judge Advocate John Bingham presented the closing argument for the prosecution. The military tribunal had jurisdiction, he said, not only because the court itself had ruled at the beginning of the trials that it did but because they were crimes committed in a military zone, during a time of war, and against high government officials in carrying out treasonous activities. Bingham pointed out that the Surratt boarding house was where the conspiracy was planned, and Atzerodt, Booth, and Powell had all met with Surratt. Booth had paid for the rental of the carriage that took Surratt to Surrattsville each time, and Bingham said that was evidence that Surratt's trips were critical to the conspiracy. Bingham also said that Lloyd's testimony had been corroborated by others and that his unwillingness to reveal the cache of weapons in the tavern was prompted by his subservient tenant relationship to Surratt. Bingham concluded by reiterating the government's key point: Powell had returned to the Surratt house seeking Surratt, and that alone was proof of her guilt. Bingham also pointed out for the tribunal that the charge a person was indicted for was irrelevant. Under the law of conspiracy, if one person carries out a crime, all conspirators are guilty of the same crime.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865. Surratt was so ill the last four days of the trial that she was permitted to stay in her cell. In the opinion of historian Roy Z. Chamlee, both legal teams appeared to have flaws in their cases, and except for Reverdy Johnson, neither team employed highly skilled attorneys. The government's case was hindered by its failure to call as a witness the man who shared Lloyd's carriage when he talked with Surratt and could have verified Lloyd's version of the "shooting irons" story or Metropolitan Police Chief A.C. Richards whose investigation had had the most success in the early days of the investigation. The government did not fully investigate Booth's meetings with Surratt at noon or the evening of the murder, and its questioning and cross-examination of witnesses was poorly prepared and weak. What is most important, according to historian Roy Z. Chamber Jr., is that the government had botched the attempt to apprehend John Jr. The defense's case, too, had a problem. The defense never followed up on inconsistencies in Weichmann's chronology of Mary's last visit to the tavern, which could have undermined Weichmann's entire credibility.
The military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing on June 29 and 30. Surratt's guilt was the second-last to be considered, as her case had problems of evidence and witness reliability. The sentence was handed down on June 30. The military tribunal found her guilty on all charges but two. A death sentence required six of the nine votes of the judges. Surratt was sentenced to death, the first woman executed by the federal government. The sentence was announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that she was completely innocent of all charges. The night before the execution, Surratt's priests and Anna Surratt both visited Powell and elicited from him a strong statement declaring Mary innocent. Although it was delivered to Captain Christian Rath, who was overseeing the execution, Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's death. George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy. Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
Anna Surratt pleaded repeatedly for her mother's life with Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, but he refused to consider clemency. She also attempted to see President Andrew Johnson several times to beg for mercy but was not granted permission to see him.
Five of the nine judges signed a letter asking President Johnson to give Surratt clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison because of her age and sex. Holt did not deliver the recommendation to Johnson until July 5, two days before Surratt and the others were to hang. Johnson signed the order for execution but did not sign the order for clemency. Johnson later said he never saw the clemency request; Holt said he showed it to Johnson, who refused to sign it. Johnson, according to Holt, said in signing the death warrant that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg."
Execution
Construction of the gallows for the hanging of the conspirators condemned to death began immediately on July 5, after the execution order was signed. It was constructed in the south part of the Arsenal courtyard, was high and about in size. Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. Tired of making nooses and thinking that the government would never hang a woman, he made Surratt's noose the night before the execution with five loops rather than the regulation seven. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot and then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Civilian workers did not want to dig the graves out of superstitious fear, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined by two Catholic priests (Jacob Walter and B.F. Wiget) and her daughter Anna. Father Jacob remained with her almost until her death. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence. She spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests. Anna left her mother's side at 8 A.M. on July 7 and went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time. Her entreaty rejected, she returned to the prison and her mother's cell at about 11 A.M. The soldiers began testing the gallows about 11:25 A.M.; the sound of the tests unnerved all the prisoners. Shortly before noon, Mary Surratt was taken from her cell and then allowed to sit in a chair near the entrance to the courtyard. The heat in the city that day was oppressive. By noon, it had already reached . The guards ordered all visitors to leave at 12:30 P.M. When she was forced to part from her mother, Anna's hysterical screams of grief could be heard throughout the prison.
Clampitt and Aiken had not finished trying to save their client, however. On the morning of July 7, they asked a District of Columbia court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the military tribunal had no jurisdiction over their client. The court issued the writ at 3 A.M., and it was served on General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock was ordered to produce Surratt by 10 A.M. General Hancock sent an aide to General John F. Hartranft, who commanded the Old Capitol Prison, ordering him not to admit any US marshal, as that would prevent the marshal from serving a similar writ on Hartranft. Johnson was informed that the court had issued the writ and promptly cancelled it at 11:30 A.M. under the authority granted to him by the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. General Hancock and United States Attorney General James Speed personally appeared in court and informed the judge of the cancellation of the writ.
On July 7, 1865, at 1:15 P.M., a procession led by General Hartranft escorted the four condemned prisoners through the courtyard and up the steps to the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were bound by manacles. Surratt led the way, wearing a black bombazine dress, black bonnet, and black veil. More than 1,000 people, including government officials, members of the US armed forces, friends and family of the accused, official witnesses, and reporters, watched. General Hancock limited attendance to those who had a ticket, and only those who had a good reason to be present were given a ticket. (Most of those present were military officers and soldiers, as fewer than 200 tickets had been printed.)
Alexander Gardner, who had photographed the body of Booth and taken portraits of several of the male conspirators while they were imprisoned aboard naval ships, photographed the execution for the government. Hartranft read the order for their execution. Surratt, either weak from her illness or swooning in fear (perhaps both), had to be supported by two soldiers and her priests. The condemned were seated in chairs, Surratt almost collapsing into hers. She was seated to the right of the others, the traditional "seat of honor" in an execution. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides and their ankles and thighs together. The cloths around Surratt's legs were tied around her dress below the knees. Each person was ministered to by a member of the clergy. From the scaffold, Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us." Fathers Jacob and Wiget prayed over her and held a crucifix to her lips. About 16 minutes elapsed from the time the prisoners entered the courtyard until they were ready for execution.
A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Surratt's bonnet was removed, and the noose put around her neck by a U.S. Secret Service officer. She complained that the bindings about her arms hurt, and the officer preparing said, "Well, it won't hurt long." Finally, the prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. The chairs were removed. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
Surratt and the others stood on the drop for about 10 seconds, and then Captain Rath clapped his hands. Four soldiers of Company F of the 14th Veteran Reserves knocked out the supports holding the drops in place, and the condemned fell. Surratt, who had moved forward enough to barely step onto the drop, lurched forward and slid partway down the drop, her body snapping tight at the end of the rope, swinging back and forth. She appeared to die relatively quickly with little struggle. Atzerodt's stomach heaved once and his legs quivered; then, he was still. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes, strangling to death.
Burial
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred. The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 p.m. A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud. He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently. Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's. Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m. As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.
Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall. The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins. The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts, and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin. The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows. A white picket fence marked the burial site. The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.
Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years. In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault. Booth's body lay alongside them. In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother. Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869. Lloyd is buried from her grave in the same cemetery.
Surviving family and home
Anna Surratt moved from the townhouse on H Street and lived with friends for a few years, ostracized from society. She married William Tonry, a government clerk. They lived in poverty for a while after he was dismissed from his job, but in time, he became a professor of chemistry in Baltimore and the couple became better off. The strain of her mother's death left Anna mentally unbalanced, and she suffered from periods of extreme fear that bordered on insanity. She died in 1904.
After the dismissal of charges against him, John Jr. married and he and his family lived in Baltimore near his sister, Anna. Isaac Surratt also returned to the United States and lived in Baltimore. He died unmarried in 1907. Isaac and Anna were buried on either side of their mother in Mount Olivet Cemetery. John Jr. was buried in Baltimore in 1916. In 1968, a new headstone with a brass plaque replaced the old, defaced headstone over Mary Surratt's grave.
Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Those interested in Mary Surratt formed the Surratt Society. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society. The Washington Arsenal is now Fort Lesley J. McNair.
Portrayals
Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.
References
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External links
Anna Surratt, daughter
Surratt Society and Museum
Read through the Lincoln Assassination Papers about evidence against Mary Surratt
Historic Marker at the Surratt Boarding House
Brief Mary Surratt Biography (written by a retired teacher especially for students and schools)
1820s births
1865 deaths
19th-century American women
19th-century executions by the United States
19th-century executions of American people
American slave owners
Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Executed American women
Executed people from Maryland
Lincoln assassination conspirators
People executed by the United States federal government by hanging
People from Clinton, Maryland
People of Maryland in the American Civil War
Women in the American Civil War
Catholics from Maryland | true | [
"\"What She's Doing Now\" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music singer Garth Brooks. It was released in December 1991 as the third single from his album Ropin' the Wind. It spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. It was co-written by Pat Alger.\n\nContent\nThe song is a ballad about a man who wonders what his former lover is currently doing and what her whereabouts are (\"last I heard she had moved to Boulder\"). While the singer has no idea what she is doing now, he proclaims \"what she's doing now is tearing [him] apart\".\n\nBackground and production\nBrooks provided the following background information on the song in the CD booklet liner notes from The Hits:\n\n\"What She's Doing Now\" was an idea I had a long, long time about a man wondering what a woman was doing. And it was very simple. What is she doing now? Is she hanging out the clothes? Is she running a business? Is she a mother? Is she married? Who is she with? When I told the idea to Pat Alger, he looked at me with a smile and said, 'I wonder if she knows what she's doing now to me?' When I heard that, the bumps went over my arms and the back of my neck, and I knew that he had something. Crystal Gayle cut this song back in 1989. It came back to us for the Ropin' The Wind album. It is a song that has crossed all boundaries and borders around the world. This has made me extremely happy because the greatest gift a writer can ask for is to relate to someone. I can't help but think that this song might relate to a lot of people.\"\n\nOther versions\nWhile Garth Brooks penned the song, he was not the first person to release it. On the 1990 release Ain't Gonna Worry'', Crystal Gayle recorded the song as \"What He's Doing Now\"; her version was not released as a single.\n\nTrack listing\nEuropean CD single\nLiberty CDCL 656\n\"What She's Doing Now\"\n\"Shameless\"\n\"We Bury The Hatchet\"\nUS 7\" Jukebox single\nLiberty S7-57784\n\"What She's Doing Now\"\n\"Friends in Low Places\"\n\nChart positions\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1991 singles\nCrystal Gayle songs\nGarth Brooks songs\nSongs written by Pat Alger\nSongs written by Garth Brooks\nSong recordings produced by Allen Reynolds\nLiberty Records singles\n1991 songs",
"Sleeper is the sixth studio album by American indie rock musician Ty Segall, released on August 20, 2013 on Drag City. Recorded between January and March 2013, the album features primarily acoustic psychedelic folk compositions, and is influenced by the death of Segall's father and his subsequent estrangement from his mother.\n\nUpon the album's release, Segall noted, \"I was not in a good spot. I had been through some rough stuff, like my dad passed away, and was going through some relationship issues, too. Plus, I was having all of these awful dreams. Ones about sleep and death, and it's from there that I'd write stuff from. It's not really like what I do. It's more brutal to me.\"\n\nThe album is notable for being the first without a promotional single since Segall's self-titled debut album. Still, in November 2013, an official video for \"The Man Man\" was released.\n\nBackground and recording\nThe album was written and recorded following the death of Ty Segall's father, Brian Segall. Following the album's release, Segall noted, \"It was just therapeutic, really. It just was necessary for me to put that out there, recording a song or writing it down on a piece of paper to get it out of my head and body, so I could move on to other things.\"\n\nAt this time, Segall became estranged from his mother, writing the track \"Crazy\" directly about her. Segall stated, \"I hope she hears it, 'cause she needs to wake up and change what she does with her life. I'm a bit bitter about that relationship. I don't want to go into details, 'cause that's not classy. That's another reason I was like, \"Should I put this out?\" I'm directly calling out my mother and saying \"Crazy\" is about her. You only have one mother, technically, so that's pretty intense, but that's the thing. If she hears it and decides that she wants to change what she's doing with her life and wants to rethink what's going on, then there you go, that's great.\"\n\nRegarding Sleepers recording process, Segall noted, \"It was like I didn't really know what I was doing. I thought at first it was all demos and then they eventually became songs. It was a lot of, \"I don't know where this is going man,\" and then a lot of, \"I don't know if people are going to dig this,\" and, \"What is this?\" and then, \"Oh shit, I guess this is it.\" [...] I didn't set out to do an acoustic thing.\" Segall elaborated, \"I'd record with the eight-track in my house, and then I'd go over to a friend's house and record. My friend Eric Bauer was in San Francisco, and I'd go to his house three to four times a week. It was all very available to me. It felt good, to be able to work hard and really stretch out the whole production.\"\n\nWriting and composition\nRegarding Sleepers overall acoustic aesthetic, Segall noted, \"There wasn't any intention behind it, which is the weird thing. It's not like I set out to do an acoustic or mellow thing. It kind of just fit what was happening. It wasn't like a decision, it was kind of more of a response.\"\n\nAccording to Segall, the track, \"She Don't Care\", \"is one of the more intense songs. It's about someone, but it's more about being brutal. I don't care if the specific person hears it and feels bad about it. It's more about me getting it out of my system. Not to sound spiteful, though.\"\n\nAlternative album titles\nThe album is given four alternative titles in album's liner notes: An Ode to the Man Man, The Sleeper, A Farewell to C.C. Crazy and Mr. Mercedes.\n\nThe Sleeper Band\nAlthough the album is performed almost entirely by Ty Segall, a specific backing band was formed for its live performances, entitled \"The Sleeper Band\". The band consisted of Nodzzz and White Fence guitarist Sean Paul, The Traditional Fools' bassist Andrew Luttrell, and regular band member and Fuzz guitarist Charles Moothart on drums. Regarding this touring configuration, Segall noted, \"We're doing The Sleeper Band, which is the mellow version. It's not the Ty Segall Band, but The Sleeper Band. [...] I don't think it'll be hard for us to do it, because I have a different band for this tour. [Regular band members] Mikal Cronin and Emily Rose Epstein are touring for Mikal's record. I decided to just take that cue and assemble a mellow band.\"\n\nCritical reception\n\nWriting for Pitchfork, Evan Minsker gave the album a very positive review, stating: \"Everything here easily lives in the same universe - ten tracks of similarly hued songs, all of a piece. It's [Segall's] most focused album, with every song's tone easily flowing into the next, and it's also one of his best.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nMusicians\nTy Segall - vocals, guitars, percussion\nK. Dylan Edrich - violin and viola (1 and 5)\nDavid Novick - drums (2)\n\nRecording personnel\nTy Segall - recording\nJohn Golden - mastering\n\nArtwork\nDenee Petracek - artwork and portrait photograph\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2013 albums\nTy Segall albums\nDrag City (record label) albums"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'"
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | What happened in 2004? | 1 | What happened in 2004 to Fabolous? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | 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",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004."
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | Was it a success? | 2 | Was Faboulous's third album a success? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | false | [
"Sixteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Success, whilst another was planned:\n\n was a 34-gun ship, previously the French ship Jules. She was captured in 1650, renamed HMS Old Success in 1660 and sold in 1662.\n HMS Success was a 24-gun ship launched in 1655 as . She was renamed HMS Success in 1660 and was wrecked in 1680.\n was a 6-gun fireship purchased in 1672 that foundered in 1673.\n was a store hulk purchased in 1692 and sunk as a breakwater in 1707.\n was a 10-gun sloop purchased in 1709 that the French captured in 1710 off Lisbon.\n was a 24-gun storeship launched in 1709, hulked in 1730, and sold in 1748. \n was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1712, converted to a fireship in 1739, and sold in 1743.\n was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1736; her fate is unknown.\n was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1740 and broken up in 1779.\n was a 14-gun ketch launched in 1754. Her fate is unknown.\n was a 32-gun fifth rate launched in 1781 that the French captured in 1801 but that the British recaptured the same year. She became a convict ship in 1814 and was broken up in 1820.\n was a 3-gun gunvessel, previously in use as a barge. She was purchased in 1797 and sold in 1802.\n was a 28 gun sixth rate launched in 1825, and captained by James Stirling in his journey to Western Australia. She was used for harbour service from 1832 and was broken up 1849.\n HMS Success was to have been a wood screw sloop. She was ordered but not laid down and was cancelled in 1863.\n was a launched in 1901 and wrecked in 1914.\n HMS Success was an launched in 1918. She was transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in 1919 and was sold in 1937.\n was an S-class destroyer launched in 1943. She was transferred to the Royal Norwegian Navy later that year and renamed . She was broken up in 1959.\n\nSee also\n , two ships of the Royal Australian Navy.\n\nCitations and references\nCitations\n\nReferences\n \n\nRoyal Navy ship names",
"HMAS Success was an Admiralty destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built for the Royal Navy during World War I, the ship was not completed until 1919, and spent less than eight months in British service before being transferred to the RAN at the start of 1920. The destroyer's career was uneventful, with almost all of it spent in Australian waters. Success was decommissioned in 1930, and was sold for ship breaking in 1937.\n\nDesign and construction\n\nSuccess was built to the Admiralty design of the S-class destroyer, which was designed and built as part of the British emergency war programme. The destroyer had a displacement of 1,075 tons, a length of overall and between perpendiculars, and a beam of . The propulsion machinery consisted of three Yarrow boilers feeding Brown-Curtis turbines, which supplied to the ship's two propeller shafts. Success had a maximum speed of , and a range of at . The ship's company was made up of 6 officers and 93 sailors.\n\nThe destroyer's primary armament consisted of three QF 4-inch Mark IV guns. These were supplemented by a 2-pounder pom-pom, two 9.5-inch howitzer bomb throwers, five .303 inch machine guns (a mix of Lewis and Maxim guns), two twin 21-inch torpedo tube sets, two depth charge throwers, and two depth charge chutes.\n\nSuccess was laid down by William Doxford and Sons Limited at their Sunderland shipyard in 1917. The destroyer was launched on 29 June 1918, and completed on 15 April 1919. The ship was briefly commissioned into the Royal Navy in April 1919, but was quickly marked for transfer to the RAN, along with four sister ships. Success was commissioned into the RAN on 27 January 1920.\n\nOperational history\n\nSuccess and three of her sister ships sailed for Australia on 20 February, visiting ports in the Mediterranean, India, Singapore, and the Netherlands East Indies before reaching Sydney on 29 April. Success operated in Australian waters until 6 October 1921, when she was placed in reserve. The destroyer was reactivated on 1 December 1925. In late May 1926, Success visited Port Moresby.\n\nDecommissioning and fate\nSuccess paid off on 21 May 1930. She was sold to Penguins Limited for ship breaking in 1937.\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\nS-class destroyers (1917) of the Royal Australian Navy\nShips built on the River Wear\n1918 ships"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004.",
"Was it a success?",
"It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career."
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | Did they go on tour | 3 | Did Fabolous go on tour? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | false | [
"Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people",
"The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004.",
"Was it a success?",
"It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career.",
"Did they go on tour",
"I don't know."
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | What other album did they release | 4 | What other album did Fabolous release? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | true | [
"\"What I Did for Love\" is a song from the musical A Chorus Line (music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban). It was quickly recognized for its show-business potential outside Broadway and was picked up by popular singers to include in their performances in their club and television appearances. Both female and male singers have made it an inclusion in their recorded albums to great effect. The Daily Telegraph described it as a \"big anthem\".\n\nSynopsis within A Chorus Line\nIn the penultimate scene of the production, one of the dancers, Paul San Marco, has suffered a career-ending injury. The remaining dancers, gathered together onstage, are asked what they would do if they were told they could no longer dance. Diana Morales, in reply, sings this anthem, which considers loss philosophically, with an undefeated optimism; all the other dancers concur. Whatever happens, they will be free of regret. What they did in their careers, they did for love, and their talent, no matter how great, was only theirs \"to borrow,\" was to be only temporary and would someday be gone. However, the love of performing is never gone, and they are all pointed toward tomorrow.\n\nNotable versions\nBeverly Bremers' version, was released as a single in 1975.\nEydie Gormé - a single release in 1976 (US AC #23).\nBing Crosby - for his album Beautiful Memories (1977)\nEngelbert Humperdinck - for his album Miracles (1977).\nGrace Jones - for her debut album Portfolio (1977)\nJack Jones - in his 1975 album What I Did for Love (US AC #25, Canada AC #23).\nJohnny Mathis - Feelings (1975)\nBill Hayes - for his album From Me To You With Love (1976)\nMarcia Hines - see below\nPeggy Lee - for her album Peggy (1977)\nPetula Clark - a single release in 1975.\nShirley Bassey - Love, Life and Feelings (1976)\nRobert Goulet - in his album You're Something Special (1978).\nElaine Paige - included in her album Stages (1983)\nHoward Keel - for his album Just for You (1988).\nJosh Groban - for his album Stages (2015)\nMe First and the Gimme Gimmes - from their album Are A Drag (1999)\n\nMarcia Hines' version\n\nMarcia Hines recorded and released a version as the lead single from her third studio album, Ladies and Gentlemen (1977). The song peaked at number 6 on the Kent Music Report, becoming Hines' third top 10 single in Australia.\n\nAt the 1978 Australian Record Awards, the song won Hines Female Vocalist of the Year.\n\nTrack listing\n 7\" Single (MS-507)\nSide A \"What I Did for Love\" - 3:15\nSide B \"A Love Story\" (Robie Porter) - 3:31\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nSongs from A Chorus Line\n1975 songs\n1975 singles\n1977 singles\nMarcia Hines songs\nBeverly Bremers songs\nColumbia Records singles\nGrace Jones songs\nSongs written by Marvin Hamlisch",
"\"If It Ain't Love\" and Other Great Dallas Frazier Songs is the nineteenth studio album by American country music artist, Connie Smith. The album was released in July 1972 by RCA Records and was produced by Bob Ferguson. The album spawned the album's title track, \"If It Ain't Love (Let's Leave It Alone)\".\n\nBackground \n\"If It Ain't Love\" and Other Great Dallas Frazier Songs consisted of ten tracks written by American country songwriter, Dallas Frazier, who had written many of Smith's past hits, including, \"Just for What I Am\" and \"Ain't Had No Lovin'.\" In addition, he had also written many tracks for Smith's previous albums, including her last 1972 release, Ain't We Havin' Us a Good Time (he had written half of the album's songs). It included a Gospel song written by Frazier, \"Laying on the Hands\"; by 1972, Smith was beginning to incorporate more Gospel music into many of her albums. The release was issued on a 12-inch LP record, with five songs on each side of the record. The album has not been released on a compact disc since its original issue by RCA in July 1972.\n\nOn three of the album's cuts, Frazier joined Smith as a duet partner.\n\nRelease \n\"If It Ain't Love\" and Other Great Dallas Frazier Songs spawned one single. The title track, \"If It Ain't Love (Let's Leave It Alone)\" was released as its only single in July 1972. The song became a Top 10 hit in the United States, as did two other singles released in 1972, \"Just for What I Am\" and \"Love Is the Look You're Looking for.\" As a single, \"If It Ain't Love\" reached a peak of #7 on the Billboard Magazine Hot Country Songs chart and #15 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart. The album itself also did extremely well. Released in July 1972, \"If It Ain't Love\" and Other Great Dallas Frazier Songs peaked at #14 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart upon its official release.\n\nTrack listing\n\nSales chart positions \nAlbum\n\nSingles\n\nReferences \n\n1972 albums\nConnie Smith albums\nRCA Records albums\nAlbums produced by Bob Ferguson (music)"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004.",
"Was it a success?",
"It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career.",
"Did they go on tour",
"I don't know.",
"What other album did they release",
"His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin,"
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | Did it have hits? | 5 | Did the album Real Talk have hits? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | The first single and video, "Diamonds | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | true | [
"Greatest Hits: Straight Up! is the second greatest hits compilation by singer Paula Abdul. The album was released on May 8, 2007. The album comprehensively contains all of Abdul's singles including six U.S. number-ones. It notably includes the top-20 single \"Will You Marry Me?\" and \"Ain't Never Gonna Give You Up\" which were left off her 2000 Greatest Hits album along with four additional album tracks. Like its predecessor album, Greatest Hits: Straight Up! did not chart on the Billboard 200 (though it did chart near the bottom of the R&B Albums chart).\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nPaula Abdul compilation albums\n2007 greatest hits albums\nVirgin Records compilation albums",
"Harvey Hits was an American comic book series, published by Harvey Comics. The series ran from September 1957 to November 1967; in all, 122 issues were published. Harvey Hits was similar to DC Comics' Showcase in that it was an anthology tryout series which often featured characters that did not have their own comic series. Harvey Hits should not be confused with Harvey Comics Hits, which ran in the early 1950s, or Harvey Hits Comics, which ran from 1986-87 during a revival of the Harvey Comics line.\n\nSeveral issues of Harvey Hits are notable. Issue #3 (November 1957) was the first comic book to feature Richie Rich prominently; #7 (March 1958) was the first comic devoted to Wendy, the Good Little Witch.\n\nBesides Richie Rich and Wendy, many other characters featured in Harvey Hits later received their own comic magazine, including Little Sad Sack and Stumbo the Giant.\n\nBy the mid-1960s, Harvey Hits settled on a rotating cast of characters that appeared every few months, including Muttsy, G.I. Juniors, and Gabby Gob. G.I. Juniors were featured in the last issue of Harvey Hits, #122, cover dated November 1967.\n\nIn 2017, a new version of Harvey Hits was published by Joe Books, a Canadian-based publishing house and book packager. The book features art by various artists, including Art Baltazar.\n\nReferences\n\nHarvey Comics titles"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004.",
"Was it a success?",
"It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career.",
"Did they go on tour",
"I don't know.",
"What other album did they release",
"His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin,",
"Did it have hits?",
"The first single and video, \"Diamonds"
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | Did they win any awards | 6 | Did the album Real Talk win any awards? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | The album was certified Gold in July 2007. | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | true | [
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The African National Congress was a political party in Trinidad and Tobago. The party first contested national elections in 1961, when it received just 0.5% of the vote and failed to win a seat. They did not put forward any candidates for the 1966 elections, but returned for the 1971 elections, in which they received 2.4% of the vote, but again failed to win a seat as the People's National Movement won all 36. The party did not contest any further elections.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct political parties in Trinidad and Tobago"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004.",
"Was it a success?",
"It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career.",
"Did they go on tour",
"I don't know.",
"What other album did they release",
"His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin,",
"Did it have hits?",
"The first single and video, \"Diamonds",
"Did they win any awards",
"The album was certified Gold in July 2007."
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | Did they go on tour | 7 | Did Fabolous go on tour? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | false | [
"Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people",
"The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England"
] |
[
"Fabolous",
"2004-08: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin'",
"What happened in 2004?",
"Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004.",
"Was it a success?",
"It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career.",
"Did they go on tour",
"I don't know.",
"What other album did they release",
"His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin,",
"Did it have hits?",
"The first single and video, \"Diamonds",
"Did they win any awards",
"The album was certified Gold in July 2007.",
"Did they go on tour",
"I don't know."
] | C_5d96edda80914255a3e006531ad0110b_0 | What are some other interesting aspects about this article? | 8 | Besides debuting at number six, what are some other interesting aspects about the album Real Talk ? | Fabolous | Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 10,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006. In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic. His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon. The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart. CANNOTANSWER | The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." | John David Jackson (born November 18, 1977), better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper and songwriter. He first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with Elektra Records. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" (featuring Nate Dogg) and "Young'n (Holla Back)". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" (featuring Lil' Mo) and "Into You" (featuring Tamia or Ashanti).
Including the aforementioned songs, Jackson's series of hit singles extended throughout the 2000s, including "Trade It All, Pt. 2" (featuring Diddy and Jagged Edge), "Breathe", "Make Me Better" (featuring Ne-Yo), "Baby Don't Go" (featuring T-Pain), "Throw It in the Bag" (featuring The-Dream) and "You Be Killin' Em". He is also known for his appearances on several R&B singles, including "Superwoman Pt. II" by Lil' Mo, "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian, "Shawty Is a 10" by The-Dream, "Addiction" by Ryan Leslie, "I Can't Hear the Music" by Brutha, "She Got Her Own" by Jamie Foxx, "Say Aah" by Trey Songz, and many more.
In 2004, Jackson signed to Atlantic Records (another subsidiary of Warner Music Group), after leaving Elektra, where he released Real Talk, his first and only album under Atlantic. In 2006, Jackson was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed with Def Jam Recordings (owned by Warner competitor Universal Music Group). Also in 2006, Jackson founded his own record label, Street Family Records. In 2007, he released From Nothin' to Somethin', under Def Jam. In 2009, he would go on to release his fifth album, Loso's Way. Throughout the years Jackson has amassed a number of self-released mixtapes, including several installments of his highly acclaimed There Is No Competition series and The S.O.U.L. Tape series, respectively. He released his sixth album, The Young OG Project, in 2014.
Life and career
1977–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Fabolous was born John David Jackson on November 18, 1977, and is of Dominican and African-American descent. He grew up in Breevort Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
While in his senior year of high school, Jackson began to pursue a career in hip hop music. In the early years of his career, he rapped under the name Fabolous Sport, in reference to Ralph Lauren's Polo Sport line, however this was later shortened to simply Fabolous. The misspelling was unintentional; Jackson originally intended to be simply called "Fabulous" but incorrectly spelled it during a freestyle and it stuck. He was invited to rap live on American record producer and music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on New York City radio station Hot 97. Fabolous and N.O.R.E. rapped over the instrumental to The Lox's Money, Power & Respect, and DJ Clue subsequently signed Fabolous to his record label, Desert Storm Records. Fabolous was then featured on several DJ Clue mixtapes, as well as mixtapes with Roc-A-Fella artists. This earned Fabolous and Desert Storm a distribution deal with Elektra Records. In a September 6, 2001, interview with Hot104.com, Fabolous said he never planned on becoming a rapper and told the website: "I was just trying to make some money, ya know? I got tired of being broke. This was something where I could make some money. It just happened for me."
2001–2003: Ghetto Fabolous and Street Dreams
Fabolous released his debut album, Ghetto Fabolous, on September 11, 2001. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling over 140,000 copies in its first week. The album's first single, "Can't Deny It", was produced by Rick Rock and features a chorus by Nate Dogg interpolating Tupac Shakur's song "Ambitionz Az a Ridah". It charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with two of the subsequent singles. The other charting singles were "Young'n (Holla Back)", which was produced by The Neptunes and "Trade It All", which features vocals from Jagged Edge and was produced by DJ Clue and Duro.
Fabolous released his second album Street Dreams on March 4, 2003. Powered by a Just Blaze beat and guest vocals from Lil' Mo and Mike Shorey, "Can't Let You Go" reached number one on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Into You" with Tamia also reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Also released on Street Dreams was the lead single club banger "This Is My Party" and "Trade It All Pt. 2" which featured Jagged Edge as it did on the Ghetto Fabolous version, as well as Diddy.
Exactly seven months later, on November 4, 2003, Fabolous dropped his official mixtape, More Street Dreams, Pt. 2: The Mixtape. It was an official release by his record label, Elektra. The album featured remixes and tracks not originally on Street Dreams. This album was also an outlet for his three-man crew, known as the Triangle Offense, consisting of himself, Paul Cain, and Joe Budden. The album actually features a remix to song Fire, which was originally on Joe Budden's self-titled debut album.
=== 2004–2008: Real Talk and From Nothin' to Somethin''' ===
Fabolous' third album Real Talk was released on November 5, 2004. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with 179,000 copies and had two charting singles, the lowest in his career. The two charting singles are his street anthem "Breathe" and "Baby," which features Mike Shorey, and shows his more sensitive side that he has shown on many songs in the past. His second single was not promoted until weeks after the album's release. "Tit 4 Tat" was his third single. Pharrell of The Neptunes produced it and did the hook. Fab feels that the single didn't hit it as big as it should have due to poor advertising. Making the music video for his fourth single, "Do the Damn Thing" cost Jackson $30,000. The song featured Young Jeezy, who became known to the public through the video. The same year, Fabolous was nominated for a Grammy Award for his collaboration on the "Dip It Low" remix by Christina Milian. Fabolous stated in 2004 that he wanted to release his own clothing line. The line called "Rich Yung Society" was launched in 2006.C. Khid (March 18, 2006). Rich Yung Society Clothing Launched By Fabolous; a RichYung LifeStyle. Retrieved February 23, 2007.
In early 2006, Fabolous was let out of his contract with Atlantic and officially signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings, after a de facto trade that sent Def Jam artist Musiq, to Atlantic.
His fourth studio album, From Nothin' to Somethin, was released in June 2007. Fabolous took the number one spot on Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts for the first time in his career and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 159,000 copies in its first week. The album was certified Gold in July 2007. It is his first album on Def Jam Recordings. He was featured on the cover of video game Def Jam: Icon.
The first single and video, "Diamonds", features Young Jeezy who also appeared on the Real Talk track "Do the Damn Thing". Lil Wayne and Remy Ma are featured on the remix. His second single was "Return of the Hustle" which featured Swizz Beatz, also came out before the album release, to some acclaim, but little airplay. His third single though, "Make Me Better," which features fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, and is produced by Timbaland, was his biggest hit to date, spending 14 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Track Billboard Chart. The fourth single was "Baby Don't Go." Jermaine Dupri produced it and T-Pain sings the hook. However, in music video version of the song, Jermaine Dupri sings the hook. This song also found success, reaching number four on the Hot Rap Track Chart.
2009–2010: Loso's Way
Fabolous released his fifth studio album, Loso's Way, in July 2009. The album is based on the 1993 film Carlito's Way, similar to Jay-Z's American Gangster. The first official single is "Throw It in the Bag", featuring The-Dream, and is produced by Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. The second single is "My Time", featuring Jeremih, and is produced by The Runners and Kevin "KC" Cossom. The third single is "Everything, Everyday, Everywhere", featuring Keri Hilson, and is produced by Ryan Leslie. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week. It became Fabolous' first album to top the chart. In its second week of sales, the album dropped 8 spots from #1 to #9, selling 37,000 copies. A deluxe album was released on the same day as the standard release. The edition features a bonus DVD, ("Loso's Way" the movie). The movie features Fabolous (and three other of his friends). Fabolous is leaving a restaurant when he is shot. His three friends quickly rush Fabolous to the hospital, but are stopped by the police after running a red light. Fellow rapper Styles P has a role in the movie. DJ Clue, DJ Khaled, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, DJ Envy, and Ryan Leslie make cameo appearances. The movie "Loso's Way" runs for 33:03 minutes. In order to view "Loso's Way", the deluxe album "Loso's Way" must be purchased. In September 2009, Fabolous was ranked number eight on MTV's Hottest MC in the Game list. In an interview on December 10, 2009, with MTV, he announced that he would be releasing part two to his mixtape series with DJ Drama entitled: "There is No Competition – Part 2: The Funeral Service." Fabolous announced that it would be released on Christmas Day as a gift to his fans. He then pushed back the release date multiple times via Twitter before he and DJ Drama finally released the mixtape online on March 4, 2010.
2010–2014: There Is No Competition series and The Soul Tape series
On March 5, 2010, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service, his fourth solo mixtape and the sequel to 2008's There Is No Competition. Due to the popularity of the mixtape, Fabolous re-released it for retail in the form of an extended play (EP) titled There Is No Competition 2: The Grieving Music EP. The EP, which was preceded by the Ryan Leslie-produced single "You Be Killin Em", was released on August 29, 2010. The single peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After it was announced that his sixth album would once again be delayed, Fabolous chose to release a new project titled The S.O.U.L. Tape. The mixtape was released on April 22, 2011, and features Fabolous rapping over soul-sampling production, inspired by a freestyle he had done over the instrumental to Kanye West's "Devil in a New Dress". On Christmas Day 2011, Fabolous released There Is No Competition 3: Death Comes in 3's, the third installment in his There Is No Competition mixtape series. On November 22, 2012, Fabolous released his seventh mixtape, The S.O.U.L. Tape 2. The S.O.U.L. Tape 2 featured guest appearances from Trey Songz, Pusha T, Cassie, J. Cole, Wale and Joe Budden. The mixtape's production was handled by Streetrunner, Treddy da Don, AraabMuzik and Cardiak, among others, and follows the theme of the first album by utilising heavy usage of soul samples throughout.
In late 2012, Fabolous announced his sixth album, then-titled Loso's Way 2: Rise to Power, would be released in 2013. The first official single from Loso's Way 2, "Ready" featuring singer Chris Brown was released on January 17, 2013. The second single "When I Feel Like It" featuring 2 Chainz was released on July 9, 2013. In an interview Fabolous revealed the list of features included Trey Songz, Ne-Yo, FYUTCH, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy and stated that the album was about him "evolving and growing as a person, as a man, as an artist, as a father, as a friend." Loso's Way 2 was scheduled to be released in 2013 by Desert Storm and Def Jam, however, the album was delayed all year long and subsequently rescheduled for release in 2014.S. Samuel, "With 'Loso's Way 2' Nowhere In Sight, Fabolous Finds His Soul", SOHH, November 8, 2013. On July 30, 2014, Fabolous announced that the lead single from the album would be released by "the end of summer" and would again feature Chris Brown. He stated that "Ready" was just a "warmup record" for this song and that it would be very melodic.
2014–present: The Young OG Project series, Summertime Shootout series, and collab album with Jadakiss
On August 22, 2014, Fabolous announced that his much delayed sixth studio album had been renamed to Young OG. This was later changed to The Young OG Project. On December 1, 2014, Fabolous announced the release date for The Young OG Project to be December 25, 2014, with the announcement posted on his new Keek page. Speaking to MTV, Fabolous said the album would be "very '90s-inspired and '90s themed.". On the same day of the album release announcement, Roc Nation announced Fabolous had signed a management deal. The Young OG Project was released on Christmas Day 2014 and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 71,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2015, Fabolous confirmed that he would be releasing two new projects by the end of the year, announcing one of them would follow the trend set by There Is No Competition 2 and The Young OG Project by releasing on Christmas Day. On November 26, Fabolous released the free mixtape Summertime Shootout, and announced the second installment of The Young OG Project for December 25, however, it has since been delayed indefinitely.
On February 29, 2016, Fabolous and Jadakiss announced that work had begun on their first collaborative project, a mixtape pre-emptively titled Freddy vs. Jason. On April 2, 2016, they released a freestyle to Future's "Wicked" that they confirmed would appear on the project, which they also announced would not be a mixtape, but a full album. On April 29, 2016, Fabolous worked with K-pop artist Jessica Jung as a featured artist and co-writer on a track titled "Fly", the lead single for her first mini album, With Love, J. On September 3, 2016, Fabolous released the second installment of the Summertime Shootout mixtape series, titled Summertime Shootout 2: The Level Up. On October 31, 2017, the first single off the album "Stand Up" featuring Future. On November 21, 2017, it was announced that the album title was changed to Friday on Elm Street. The album was released on November 24, 2017, and had features from Future, Swizz Beatz, and French Montana.
On July 8, 2018, Fabolous released a single called "Ooh Yeah" featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
On October 14, 2019, released a single called "Choosy" featuring Jeremih and Davido.
On November 19, 2019, Fabolous released a 30-second trailer on his instagram for Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever along with its release date, confirming that it would be released November 29, 2019. A week later, the tracklist and the cover art were released for the album and it was also confirmed to be the final installment of the Summertime Shootout series. The album debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 44,000 album-equivalent units, making it Fabolous's seventh top-10 album.
Street Family Records Street Family Records is a record label imprint, founded by Fabolous in 2006, in Brooklyn, NY.
Artists
Fabolous
Freck Billionaire
Paul Cain
Broadway
Red Cafe
Personal life
Fabolous and his girlfriend Emily Bustamante have two sons & one daughter, born in 2008, 2015 & 2020.
Legal issues
In January and March 2003, Fabolous was arrested for possessing an unlicensed gun in his car. His bodyguard later showed proof of ownership for the gun.Vineyard, Jennifer (January 17, 2003). Fabolous Arrested Twice in Two Days . MTV. Retrieved October 8, 2007.
Fabolous was shot in his right leg on the morning of October 17, 2006, in Manhattan after exiting Justin's, a restaurant owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. After the shooting, he and his entourage were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm after being pulled over for running a red light, in which police discovered two unlicensed guns. Later on, Fabolous was treated at a local hospital and was released eight days later.
On March 29, 2018, Fabolous was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Emily Bustamante. On October 10, 2018, he was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on four felony charges of domestic assault. He reportedly accepted a plea deal in March 2019.
Discography
Studio albums
Ghetto Fabolous (2001)
Street Dreams (2003)
Real Talk (2004)
From Nothin' to Somethin' (2007)
Loso's Way (2009)
The Young OG Project (2014)
Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever (2019)
Collaboration albums
Friday on Elm Street (with Jadakiss) (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
American Music Awards
2007, Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Male Artist [Nominated]
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Music Awards2008, Top Rap Song, "Make Me Better" [Won]BET Awards
2010, Best Male Hip Hop Artist [Nominated]
2010, Best Collaboration, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
2010, Best Viewer's Choice, "Say Aah" with Trey Songz [Nominated]
BET Hip Hop Awards
2014, Best Mixtape, The Soul Tape 3 [Nominated]2009, Viewer's Choice, "Throw It in the Bag" with The-Dream [Won]'''
2007, Best Hip Hop Collabo, "Make Me Better" with Ne-Yo [Nominated]
Grammy Awards
2010, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group, "Money Goes, Honey Stays" with Jay-Z [Nominated]
2005, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, "Dip It Low" with Christina Milian [Nominated]
The Source Awards
2003, Best Rap/R&B Collabo, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Trendsetter of the Year [Nominated]
Teen Choice Awards
2007, Best Choice: Rap Artist [Nominated]
2003, Choice Rap Track, "Can't Let You Go" with Lil Mo and Mike Shorey [Nominated]
2003, Choice R&B/Hip Hop Track, "4Ever" with Lil Mo [Nominated]
References
External links
1977 births
African-American male rappers
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
African-American songwriters
American rappers of Dominican Republic descent
American shooting survivors
Desert Storm Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Living people
People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Rappers from Brooklyn
Songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male musicians
People convicted of domestic violence
Gangsta rappers
21st-century African-American musicians
20th-century African-American people
American male songwriters | true | [
"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",
"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"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests"
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | Was Cary Grant involved with business? | 1 | Was Cary Grant involved with business? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
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Further reading
External links
1904 births
1986 deaths
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"Freeman Grant Cary (7 April 1810 – 26 August 1888), was an educator in Pleasant Hill, Ohio. \nCary attended Miami University and graduated with honors in the class of 1831. His brothers were William Woodward Cary and Samuel Fenton Cary. He started Cary Academy and was involved in the founding of Farmers' College. He was involved in the founding of the Ohio Female College.\n\nCary established and edited the agricultural periodical The Cincinnatus, which had wide circulation. He was a member of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society and became its president several times.\n\nExternal links\n A little piece of paradise... College Hill,Ohio\n Farmers' College and the Underground Railroad \n\n1810 births\n1888 deaths\n19th-century American educators\nMiami University alumni\nEducators from Ohio",
"Every Girl Should Be Married is a 1948 American romantic comedy film directed by Don Hartman and starring Cary Grant, Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone. Grant and Drake married a year after the film's release.\n\nPlot summary\nDepartment store salesclerk Anabel Sims (Betsy Drake) is very enamoured with the idea of getting married. So when handsome pediatrician Dr. Madison Brown (Cary Grant) asks for her help in making a purchase, she decides that he is the one for her.\n\nHe is quite happy as a bachelor, but Anabel proves to be a very determined schemer. She learns all she can about him, everything from where he went to school to his favorite foods. Madison soon realizes her intentions and does his best to fend off the young woman.\n\nAnabel makes a reservation at a restaurant on a day when she knows that Madison habitually dines there. In an attempt to make him jealous, she pretends to be waiting for wealthy, three-times-married playboy Roger Sanford (Franchot Tone), who happens to be her employer and Madison's university classmate. By chance, Roger shows up. Fortunately for her, Roger believes that she is using Madison as a ruse to get acquainted with him. However, the maneuver fails; Madison's feelings remain unchanged.\n\nAnabel comes up with more ingenious schemes, but they are all unsuccessful. However, Roger falls in love with her. He eventually asks her to marry him, but she only invites him to dinner at her home. When Anabel's best friend Julie (Diana Lynn) warns Madison, he begins to worry, knowing something of Roger's success with women. The doctor invites himself to the little soirée. While waiting for Anabel, they are unexpectedly joined by \"Old Joe\" (Eddie Albert), Anabel's longtime hometown beau, who announces that he and Anabel are finally going to get married. At first, Madison congratulates them, but after thinking about it, makes his own bid for her hand. Anabel leaves the decision up to Joe, who bows out, saying that he only wants her to be happy. After Joe leaves, Madison informs Anabel that her research on him was incomplete; he recognized \"Joe's\" voice as that of a radio performer he listens to frequently. Madison and Anabel are soon discussing their wedding plans with a clergyman.\n\nCast\n Cary Grant as Dr. Madison W. Brown\n Franchot Tone as Roger Sanford\n Diana Lynn as Julie Hudson\n Betsy Drake as Anabel Sims\n Alan Mowbray as Mr. Spitzer\n Elisabeth Risdon as Nurse Mary Nolan\n Richard Gaines as Sam McNutt\n Harry Hayden as Gogarty\n Chick Chandler as Harry, the Soda Clerk\n Leon Belasco as Violinist\n Fred Essler as Pierre, the Restaurant Owner\n Anna Q. Nilsson as Saleslady\n Eddie Albert as Harry Proctor, aka \"Old Joe\" (uncredited)\n\nProduction\nEvery Girl Should Be Married was based on a short story written by Eleanor Harris in an October 1947 edition of the Ladies' Home Journal. The film's lead actors, Cary Grant and Betsy Drake were married in real life one year after the film's release. Drake was Grant's third wife. Grant spotted Drake performing in a stage play in London called Deep are the Roots two years before the film's release. Grant was reportedly \"intrigued by her talent and charm.\" The couple met a year before the film's release aboard the luxury liner RMS Queen Mary traveling from England back to the United States, where they were formally introduced to each other on the liner by actress and fellow passenger Merle Oberon. Grant and Drake became friends and soon were romantically involved.\n\nDrake was a stage actress from America with no film credits to her name at that time, but Cary Grant convinced Dore Schary, head of production at RKO Pictures, to sign Drake to a contract with the company. Barbara Bel Geddes was initially intended to play Anabel Sims, but Grant and industrialist Howard Hughes wanted Drake to play the role. Grant made sure he had a say in anything that concerned Drake's performance from lighting to dialogue and used his influence on everyone involved with the film.\n\nAccording to Cary Grant's biographer Marc Eliot, Grant knew that acting on screen with Drake was a risky proposition and that the general public would rightly speculate that she had gotten the part only because she was his girlfriend. According to an interview with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, Drake believed if everyone thought she had gotten her breakthrough because of Grant, then they were very wrong about him and her. She further suggested that Grant had simply made it possible for them to share a creative experience with their real-life chemistry. The film turned out to be a positive experience for both Grant and Drake, with the only downside being that Hughes insisting on becoming actively involved in every aspect of its production, with the result that Schary abruptly resigned from RKO. Hughes then allowed Grant to rewrite much of the script, and even to instruct director Don Hartman in how to shoot several scenes, so as to shift much of the film's visual emphasis from his character to Drake's.\n\nIn the biography Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart, authors Charles Higham and Roy Mosely claimed that \"Cary watched every move Betsy made on the set, endlessly checking her out, imitating her cruelly in scenes, and at times encouraging her — mistakenly — to imitate Katharine Hepburn's mannered playing.\n\nReception\nBosley Crowther of The New York Times praised Betsy Drake's performance, saying that she displays \"a refreshingly natural comic spirit\". Likewise, the weekly American entertainment trade magazine Variety described Drake's performance in the film as \"a tour de force in the romantic comedy vein.\" while calling the film \"one of those rare comic delicacies that are always in good season.\" Dennis Schwartz was more critical of the film and said, \"Writer-director Don Hartman fails to get much comedy out of the comedy\".\n\nThe film was RKO's most lucrative production of 1948, making $775,000 in profits.\n\nGrant and Drake reprised their roles for a one-hour Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on two occasions; the first broadcast was held on 27 June 1949, and the second on 17 April 1950.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n \n \n\n1948 films\n1948 romantic comedy films\nAmerican romantic comedy films\nAmerican films\nAmerican black-and-white films\nEnglish-language films\nRKO Pictures films\nFilms scored by Leigh Harline\nFilms directed by Don Hartman"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood"
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | What was one of his first business endeavors? | 2 | What was one of Cary Grant first business endeavors? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
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People educated at Fairfield Grammar School
People with acquired American citizenship
RKO Pictures contract players
Vaudeville performers
Pipe smokers | true | [
"Edmund Bacon Fitzgerald (1926 – August 28, 2013) was an American business executive from Wisconsin and was a key figure in bringing major league baseball back to Milwaukee in the form of the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970.\n\nEarly life and education\nFitzgerald was born in 1926 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended the Milwaukee Country Day School, the Deerfield Academy and the University of Michigan. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1943 to 1946 and from 1950 to 1952.\n\nEndeavors\n\nBusiness endeavors\nFitzgerald served as chief executive officer of Cutler-Hammer, Inc. for 15 years. During the 1980s, he was chairman and CEO of Nortel. He was also director of the Business Council on National Issues in Canada for four years. He also served on the board of trustees for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, First Wisconsin National Bank and Beloit College.\n\nBaseball endeavors\nFitzgerald co-founded the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970, serving at various times as Vice President and General Partner on the club until 1982. During the 1970s, he was on the Executive Council of Major League Baseball and chairman of its Player Relations Committee. He was previously a director on the board of the Milwaukee Braves and opposed the move\n\nPolitical and other endeavors\nFitzgerald served as Industry Advisory Council to the U.S. Department of Defense and was President of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. He served on President Ronald Reagan's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and was a life trustee and chairman on the Committee for Economic Development. Due to his efforts to improve trade relations between the United States and Japan, Fitzgerald was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd Class. He also served as a member of the U.S.-Korea Wisemen Council.\n\nFamily\nFitzgerald's father, also named Edmund Fitzgerald (1895–1986), was a civic leader who served as chairman of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and was the namesake for the Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald, popularized in the 1976 song \"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald\" by Gordon Lightfoot. His grandfather, William E. Fitzgerald (1859–1901), was a famous shipbuilder, and his maternal grandfather Frank R. Bacon (1872–1949) co-founded Cutler-Hammer.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1926 births\n2013 deaths\nAmerican businesspeople\nUniversity of Michigan alumni",
"William Z. Tan (Bill Tan) is an American business person in the healthcare sector.\n\nCareer\nTan came to the United States from China when he was 15 years old and often acted as family interpreter.\n\nIn 1786 Bill Tan founded Transcendent Endeavors, a company based out of New York City that uses National Institutes of Health grants to develop digital communication tools. These tools aim to assist communication between patients—particularly those for whom English is not their first language—and healthcare professionals. Transcendent Endeavors has received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding totalling over $29 million, and Tan is named as Principal Investigator on 55 of the 56 projects supported.\n\nTan holds an appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. He was named by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a New York City Venture Fellow in 2012.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican communications businesspeople\nLiving people\nNew York University School of Medicine faculty\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco"
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | Did that do well? | 3 | Did Cary Grant first business endeavors do well? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
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Vaudeville performers
Pipe smokers | false | [
"This One's for You is the sixth album by R&B crooner Teddy Pendergrass. It was released just after a bad car accident Pendergrass was involved in, which left him paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury. The album did not do as well as his previous albums did on the Billboard 200, peaking at only #59, but it did do well on the R&B album chart, reaching #6. Only one single was released, \"I Can't Win for Losing\", which peaked at only #32 on the R&B charts.\n\nTrack listing\n \"I Can't Win for Losing\" 4:16 (Victor Carstarphen, Gene McFadden, John Whitehead)\n \"This One's for You\" 6:18 (Barry Manilow, Marty Panzer)\n \"Loving You Was Good\" 3:35 (LeRoy Bell, Casey James)\n \"This Gift of Life\" 4:27 (Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff)\n \"Now Tell Me That You Love Me\" 5:15 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"It's Up to You (What You Do With Your Life)\" 5:37 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"Don't Leave Me out Along the Road\" 3:34 (Richard Roebuck)\n \"Only to You\" 3:53 (Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson)\n\nReferences\n\n1982 albums\nTeddy Pendergrass albums\nAlbums produced by Kenneth Gamble\nAlbums produced by Leon Huff\nAlbums produced by Thom Bell\nAlbums produced by Ashford & Simpson\nAlbums arranged by Bobby Martin\nAlbums recorded at Sigma Sound Studios\nPhiladelphia International Records albums",
"\"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"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco",
"Did that do well?",
"I don't know."
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | What other business ventures did he pursue? | 4 | What other business ventures did Cary Grant pursue other than the real estate development ? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
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RKO Pictures contract players
Vaudeville performers
Pipe smokers | false | [
"Peter William Laithwaite (born 1967) is an English business entrepreneur and technologist. According to the Bolton News, he made his personal fortune after selling Recover Healthcare in 2013. Laithwaite is the CEO of several businesses across the UK. Laithwaite won SME Business of the Year at the Bolton and Bury Business Awards in 2012.\n\nVentures\n\nMedico-legal \n\nLaithwaite joined the medico-legal industry in 2004, taking an executive position at e-witness Limited in Leeds. Over the next four years the business merged with Medical Report Services and ultimately concluded in a sale to Premier Medical Group. He left the business in December 2008 to pursue a new business venture.\n\nIn April 2009 Laithwaite set up Recover Healthcare Limited and React Medical Limited with Dr David Pearce. Both companies grew at a fast pace, managing thousands of personal injury claimants' medical and rehabilitation requirements. The companies gained a competitive edge by operating on bespoke cloud-based technology designed and written by an ‘in-house’ team, headed up by Dr David Pearce.\n\nThis software was ‘ePIsource’, and was quickly commercialised, with the intellectual property held in iSaaS Technology Limited, a company incorporated in 2010. Both David and Peter were major shareholders, held a board position and played an active role in the development and success of the business.\n\nIn March 2013 shareholders of React Medical Limited, Recover Healthcare Limited and iSaaS Technology agreed to sell the companies to Quindell plc for a combined sum of circa £21 million. This consideration was made up of cash and Quindell plc shares based on the delivery of a warranted business plan. The warranted profits and cash collections were all exceeded, at which point Laithwaite and Pearce took the decision to leave the Quindell plc business to pursue a new venture.\n\nIn March 2015 they set up Qualitas Medical assurance, which offers software for medical evidence.\n\nLaithwaite and Pearce are also co-founders of Nephos Solutions, delivering SaaS products to industries including aviation and the medico-legal sector. Nephos also spearhead the Nephos 100k Startup Challenge, an initiative aimed at identifying and supporting tech startups in the North West of England.\n\nIn March 2018, Laithwaite contributed to two reports from Coutts, The Art of the Business Exit and Life after a business exit, sharing his thoughts on the reality of selling a business and key advice entrepreneurs should be aware of before taking that step. Laithwaite notes that: \"Understanding what our buyers really wanted transformed the deal that we did. Although we were selling three companies, it was the technology and the opportunity to lock me in to their business that they really wanted. By finding out where the fit was in our business we ended up going to market with a very different deal in shape and size to what we initially had in mind.\"\n\nPanda Coffee Co \n\nLaithwaite is also the owner of the high street coffee brand \"Panda Coffee Co\". The original coffee shop opened for business in a redeveloped period building in Bowkers Row, Bolton, in 2015, before the brand expanded across the North West of England.\n\nCube Construct \n\nLaithwaite is the CEO of Cube Construct, a building contractor founded in 2015.\n\nPanda Developments \nLaithwaite is also co-founder of property development concern Panda Developments, founded after the establishment of Cube Construct. Panda Developments have previously undertaken a development project in Bolton town centre, opening a site in Nelson Square up to retail and new apartment buildings, and are currently developing the Old School House building in Bradshaw into a 15-apartment housing building.\n\nOther work \nSome of Laithwaite's other ventures include Citicare, a medical product and mobility aid purchasing platform. He also sits on the board of Hermit Offices, a residential-space office-sharing startup.\n\nCharity \n\nLaithwaite's various business interests support community groups and charities in the region. These include Bolton Hospice and Bury Cricket Club.\n\nReferences \n\n1967 births\nLiving people\nEnglish chief executives\n20th-century British businesspeople\n21st-century British businesspeople",
"The Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women is an American 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation which, through its Peace Through Business program in Afghanistan and Rwanda, works to empower women \"to grow their businesses, pursue greater entrepreneurial ventures, and become more active public policy advocates\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nFeminist organizations in the United States\nCharities based in the United States\nForeign charities operating in Afghanistan\nForeign charities operating in Rwanda"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco",
"Did that do well?",
"I don't know.",
"What other business ventures did he pursue?",
"He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge."
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | What did he do there? | 5 | What did Cary Grant do on the board of directors at Faberge? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
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People educated at Fairfield Grammar School
People with acquired American citizenship
RKO Pictures contract players
Vaudeville performers
Pipe smokers | false | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"Follow Me! is a series of television programmes produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the BBC in the late 1970s to provide a crash course in the English language. It became popular in many overseas countries as a first introduction to English; in 1983, one hundred million people watched the show in China alone, featuring Kathy Flower.\n\nThe British actor Francis Matthews hosted and narrated the series.\n\nThe course consists of sixty lessons. Each lesson lasts from 12 to 15 minutes and covers a specific lexis. The lessons follow a consistent group of actors, with the relationships between their characters developing during the course.\n\nFollow Me! actors\n Francis Matthews\n Raymond Mason\n David Savile\n Ian Bamforth\n Keith Alexander\n Diane Mercer\n Jane Argyle\n Diana King\n Veronica Leigh\n Elaine Wells\n Danielle Cohn\n Lashawnda Bell\n\nEpisodes \n \"What's your name\"\n \"How are you\"\n \"Can you help me\"\n \"Left, right, straight ahead\"\n \"Where are they\"\n \"What's the time\"\n \"What's this What's that\"\n \"I like it very much\"\n \"Have you got any wine\"\n \"What are they doing\"\n \"Can I have your name, please\"\n \"What does she look like\"\n \"No smoking\"\n \"It's on the first floor\"\n \"Where's he gone\"\n \"Going away\"\n \"Buying things\"\n \"Why do you like it\"\n \"What do you need\"\n \"I sometimes work late\"\n \"Welcome to Britain\"\n \"Who's that\"\n \"What would you like to do\"\n \"How can I get there?\"\n \"Where is it\"\n \"What's the date\"\n \"Whose is it\"\n \"I enjoy it\"\n \"How many and how much\"\n \"What have you done\"\n \"Haven't we met before\"\n \"What did you say\"\n \"Please stop\"\n \"How can I get to Brightly\"\n \"Where can I get it\"\n \"There's a concert on Wednesday\"\n \"What's it like\"\n \"What do you think of him\"\n \"I need someone\"\n \"What were you doing\"\n \"What do you do\"\n \"What do you know about him\"\n \"You shouldn't do that\"\n \"I hope you enjoy your holiday\"\n \"Where can I see a football match\"\n \"When will it be ready\"\n \"Where did you go\"\n \"I think it's awful\"\n \"A room with a view\"\n \"You'll be ill\"\n \"I don't believe in strikes\"\n \"They look tired\"\n \"Would you like to\"\n \"Holiday plans\"\n \"The second shelf on the left\"\n \"When you are ready\"\n \"Tell them about Britain\"\n \"I liked everything\"\n \"Classical or modern\"\n \"Finale\"\n\nReferences \n\n BBC article about the series in China\n\nExternal links \n Follow Me – Beginner level \n Follow Me – Elementary level\n Follow Me – Intermediate level\n Follow Me – Advanced level\n\nAdult education television series\nEnglish-language education television programming"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco",
"Did that do well?",
"I don't know.",
"What other business ventures did he pursue?",
"He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge.",
"What did he do there?",
"Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally"
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | How long was he on the board? | 6 | How long was Cary Grant on the board directors at Faberge? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
(a probable mirror/plagiarism of Wikipedia case)
Further reading
External links
1904 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century English male actors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American autobiographers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male radio actors
British expatriate male actors in the United States
David di Donatello winners
English autobiographers
English emigrants to the United States
English male film actors
English male stage actors
English male radio actors
Kennedy Center honorees
Male actors from Bristol
Deaths from cerebrovascular disease
Columbia Pictures contract players
Paramount Pictures contract players
People educated at Fairfield Grammar School
People with acquired American citizenship
RKO Pictures contract players
Vaudeville performers
Pipe smokers | false | [
"Joshua Lafazan (born January 29, 1994) is an American politician, author, and university professor. He is a member of the Nassau County (New York) Legislature from the 18th district. He is the second-youngest person to be elected in New York.\n\nEducation\nJosh Lafazan graduated from Syosset High School in June 2012. \n\nHe attended Nassau Community College and received the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Student Excellence. He was named a recipient of the New York State School Boards Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. Lafazan attended Cornell University for his Bachelor of Science degree and Harvard University for his Master of Education degree.\n\nCareer \nDuring the latter part of his senior year of high school, Lafazan campaigned for a trustee position on the Syosset Board of Education, which he won in May of that year with 82 percent of the vote. He was re-elected to the board in 2015 for another three-year term. Lafazan resigned from his position on the school board on December 31, 2017, based on a clause in the Nassau County Charter that provides a possible conflict with holding both positions.\n\nOn April 26, 2013, Lafazan was elected to the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, which credited him for founding Saferide Syosset, an outreach program to help guide teenagers on how to get home when impaired. \n\nOn June 8, 2017, Lafazan announced he was running for a seat in the Nassau County Legislature. He won on November 7, 2017, with 56 percent of the vote, against incumbent Republican Donald MacKenzie. Lafazan was re-elected to the county legislature in 2019 and 2021.\n\nLafazan has authored and passed multiple notable pieces of legislation in his tenure as a legislator. \"Timothy's Law\" was passed in August 2018, which established a 24-hour hotline for substance abuse intervention. Related legislation mandated the creation of a smartphone application containing resources for substance abuse, such as treatment center locations. The \"Dignity For Our Heroes\" package, signed into law in April 2019, marked veterans as a protected status under the County's Human Rights Law, in addition to creating the Nassau Commission on Ending Veteran Homelessness, which guides projects meant to reduce the number of veterans who are housing insecure in the region. \n\nLafazan was named on the Long Island Press Power List of the 50 most influential people on Long Island in 2012. His book, titled Political Gladiators: How Millennials Can Navigate the 21st Century Political Minefield and WIN!, was published in November 2015, and tells experiences of other politicians who were elected at a young age. Lafazan has been featured as a speaker in TedX conferences. \n\nHe is a professor at Long Island University, teaching a course on how to run for public office as a young candidate.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal Links\nJosh Lafazan for Congress\n\n1994 births\n21st-century American politicians\nCornell University alumni\nHarvard Graduate School of Education alumni\nLiving people\nNassau Community College alumni\nSyosset High School alumni",
"Salisbury was launched at Howdon in 1807. The Royal Navy′s Transport Board engaged her to support the British attack on Copenhagen in August–September 1807. She was wrecked while bringing troops back to England after the city's surrender.\n\nSalisbury first entered Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1807 with N.Purdye, master, Dodds, owner, and trade London transport.\n\nOn 10 November 1807, Salisbury was wrecked on the Long Sand, in the North Sea off Deal, Kent, England, with the loss of over 240 lives. Lloyd's List gave the location as Kentish Knock and the name of her master as Purdy. Other records suggest that 60 of the 260 troops on board were saved; it is not clear how many of her crew, if any, survived.\n\nCitations and references\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\n1807 ships\nShips built on the River Tyne\nAge of Sail merchant ships of England\nMaritime incidents in 1807\nShipwrecks in the North Sea"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco",
"Did that do well?",
"I don't know.",
"What other business ventures did he pursue?",
"He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge.",
"What did he do there?",
"Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally",
"How long was he on the board?",
"I don't know."
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 7 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article other than being on the board directors at Faberge? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | ". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
(a probable mirror/plagiarism of Wikipedia case)
Further reading
External links
1904 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century English male actors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American autobiographers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male radio actors
British expatriate male actors in the United States
David di Donatello winners
English autobiographers
English emigrants to the United States
English male film actors
English male stage actors
English male radio actors
Kennedy Center honorees
Male actors from Bristol
Deaths from cerebrovascular disease
Columbia Pictures contract players
Paramount Pictures contract players
People educated at Fairfield Grammar School
People with acquired American citizenship
RKO Pictures contract players
Vaudeville performers
Pipe smokers | 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"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco",
"Did that do well?",
"I don't know.",
"What other business ventures did he pursue?",
"He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge.",
"What did he do there?",
"Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally",
"How long was he on the board?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"\". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties."
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | Did he ever partner with Huges for Business? | 8 | Did Cary Grant ever partner with Huges for Business? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
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Further reading
External links
1904 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century English male actors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American autobiographers
American male film actors
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British expatriate male actors in the United States
David di Donatello winners
English autobiographers
English emigrants to the United States
English male film actors
English male stage actors
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Male actors from Bristol
Deaths from cerebrovascular disease
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"Hugo Bart Huges (also Hughes; 23 April 1934 – 30 August 2004) was a Dutch librarian and proponent of trepanation. He attended medical school at the University of Amsterdam, but was refused a degree due to his advocacy of LSD research and naming his daughter \"Maria Juana\". In 1964 he published \"The Mechanism of Brainbloodvolume ('BBV')\" (also known as \"Homo Sapiens Correctus\"), a scroll in which he proposed that trepanation could be used to enhance brain functionality by balancing the proportion of blood and cerebral spinal fluid. Huges believed that, when mankind began to walk upright, our brains drained of blood and that trepanation allowed the blood to better flow in and out of the brain, causing a permanent \"high\". Using a foot-operated electric dentist drill, Huges drilled a hole in his skull on 6 January 1965. He also published \"Trepanation: A Cure for Psychosis\", in which he expanded upon his theory, and an autobiography, The Book With The Hole, in 1972.\n\nIn the 1970s Huges and his girlfriend Eveline van Dijk made several comics promoting trepanation.\n\nHis writings influenced the British-born Joey Mellen to undergo self-trepanation, which he documented in a book called Bore Hole. Huges died of heart disease on 30 August 2004, at the age of 70. He is buried at Zorgvlied cemetery.\n\nPublications \n Bart Huges: The book with the hole. Autobiography. Translation and elaboration by Joe Mellen and Amanda Feilding. Amsterdam, Foundation for Independent Thinking (F.I.T.), 1972.\n H.B. Huges: Trepanation. The cure for psychosis Transl. by Joe Mellen. Amsterdam, Foundation for Independent Thinking (F.I.T.), 1971. \n Hugo Bart Huges: The mechanism of brainbloodvolume. Transl. by Joe Mellen. Amsterdam, Foundation for Independent Thinking (F.I.T.), 1970.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The Hole to Luck, Interview with Huges by Joe Mellen, The Transatlantic Review No. 23, Winter 1966-1967\n\nDutch librarians\nDutch activists\nDutch comics writers\n1934 births\n2004 deaths",
"Huges is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:\n\nBart Huges (1934–2004), Dutch librarian\nJan Huges (1904–1986), Dutch rower\n\nSee also\nHughes (surname)\nHuge (disambiguation)\nHuger"
] |
[
"Cary Grant",
"Business interests",
"Was Cary Grant involved with business?",
"Stirling refers to Grant as \"one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood",
"What was one of his first business endeavors?",
"In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco",
"Did that do well?",
"I don't know.",
"What other business ventures did he pursue?",
"He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge.",
"What did he do there?",
"Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally",
"How long was he on the board?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"\". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties.",
"Did he ever partner with Huges for Business?",
"played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests,"
] | C_8da55066610741ff88e140cebfa012ff_1 | Other then real estate what did he invest in? | 9 | Other than real estate what did Cary Grant invest in? | Cary Grant | Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests, so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time". After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987). CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.
Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade (1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.
During the 1940s and 50s, Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941) opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest (1959) opposite James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, with Notorious and North by Northwest becoming particularly critically acclaimed. The suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious both involved Grant showing a darker, more ambiguous nature in his characters. Toward the end of his career, Grant was praised by critics as a romantic leading man, and he received five nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, including for Indiscreet (1958) again with Bergman, That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day, and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, able to play with his own dignity in comedies without sacrificing it entirely.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses: Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had a daughter, Jennifer Grant, with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1970, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by his friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981. He died of a stroke on November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, aged 82. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, trailing only Humphrey Bogart.
Early life and education
Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach (1899−1900) died of tuberculous meningitis a day before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on him having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, when he was 4½.
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine years old, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; he later declared that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. After she was gone, Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31; his father confessed to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her in October 1938 after filming was completed for Gunga Din.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe". He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". He spent his evenings working backstage in Bristol theaters, and was responsible for the lighting for magician David Devant at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at the theater at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in the summer as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life. The time spent at Southampton strengthened his desire to travel; he was eager to leave Bristol and tried to sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to his door with questions about why his son was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
Vaudeville and performing career
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant developed the ability in pantomime to broaden his physical acting skills. They traveled on the to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon, and that Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became an important role model. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant became a part of the vaudeville circuit and began touring, performing in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and he decided to stay in the US with several of the other members when the rest of the troupe returned to Britain. He became fond of the Marx Brothers during this period, and Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In July 1922, he performed in a group called the "Knockabout Comedians" at the Palace Theater on Broadway. He formed another group that summer called "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe, and he starred in a variety show named "Better Times" at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. While serving as a paid escort for the opera singer Lucrezia Bori at a Park Avenue party, he met George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park. Learning of his acrobatic experience, Tilyou hired him to work as a stilt-walker and attract large crowds on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright-great coat and a sandwich board which advertised the amusement park.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches, and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills which benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in many music halls in the UK and the US, and eventually became what some term a transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer". The following year, he joined the William Morris Agency and was offered another juvenile part by Hammerstein in his play Polly, an unsuccessful production. One critic wrote that Grant "has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score". Wansell notes that the pressure of a failing production began to make him fret, and he was eventually dropped from the run after six weeks of poor reviews. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld made an attempt to buy Grant's contract, but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. J. J. Shubert cast him in a small role as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929, ten days after his 25th birthday. MacDonald later admitted that Grant was "absolutely terrible in the role", but he exhibited a charm which endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from failure. The play ran for 72 shows, and Grant earned $350 a week before moving to Detroit, then to Chicago.
To console himself, Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton. He visited his half-brother Eric in England, and he returned to New York to play the role of Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It premiered at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and lasted until February 1930 with 125 shows. The play received mixed reviews; one critic criticized his acting, likening it to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney", while another announced that he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Grant still found it difficult forming relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed able to fully communicate with them" even after many years "surrounded by all sorts of attractive girls" in the theater, on the road, and in New York.
In 1930, Grant toured for nine months in a production of the musical The Street Singer. It ended in early 1931, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer performing on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, putting on 87 shows. He received praise from local newspapers for these performances, gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Significant influences on his acting in this period were Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire. He admitted that he was drawn to acting because of a "great need to be liked and admired". He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the lead romantic part in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Film career
1932–1936: Acting debut and early roles
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".
In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
After a string of financially unsuccessful films, which included roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), and press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1936 with the release of Wedding Present, Grant decided not to renew it and wished to work freelance. Grant claimed to be the first freelance actor in Hollywood. His first venture as a freelance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England. The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision. Critical and commercial success with Suzy later that year in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, led to him signing joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style. His Columbia contract was a four-film deal over two years, guaranteeing him $50,000 each for the first two and $75,000 each for the others.
1937–1945: Hollywood stardom
In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, portraying a wealthy American artist who eventually woos a famous opera singer (Grace Moore). His performance received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time". After a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York, Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM, which became his first major comedy success. Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who wreak havoc on the world as ghosts after dying in a car accident. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year, with a critic from Variety noting that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth that year, his first film made with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Though director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his mannerisms in the film, he recognized Grant's comic talents and encouraged him to improvise his lines and draw upon his skills developed in vaudeville. The film was a critical and commercial success and made Grant a top Hollywood star, establishing a screen persona for him as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies.
The Awful Truth began what film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures" for Grant. In 1938, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, featuring a leopard and frequent bickering and verbal jousting between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to play his character, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. Grant was given more leeway in the comic scenes, the editing of the film and in educating Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film earned rave reviews from critics. He again appeared with Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later that year, which did not fare well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was considered to be "box office poison" at the time.
Despite a series of commercial failures, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. According to Vermilye, in 1939, Grant played roles that were more dramatic, albeit with comical undertones. He played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Din, set at a military station in India. Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, and a wealthy landowner alongside Carole Lombard in In Name Only followed.
In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who learns that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy His Girl Friday, which was praised for its strong chemistry and "great verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" according to Life magazine, which became RKO's second biggest picture of the year, with profits of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in the American Revolution-set The Howards of Virginia, which McCann considers to have been Grant's worst film and performance, his last film of the year was in the critically lauded romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which he played the ex-husband of Hepburn's character. Grant felt his performance was so strong that he was bitterly disappointed not to have received an Oscar nomination, especially since both his lead co-stars, Hepburn and James Stewart, received them, with Stewart winning for Best Actor. Grant joked "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will take me seriously". Film historian David Thomson wrote that "the wrong man got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story and that "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever managed." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated apology for his being robbed of the award" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's not being nominated for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.
The following year Grant was considered for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade—his first nomination from the Academy. Wansell claims that Grant found the film to be an emotional experience, because he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton had started to discuss having their own children. Later that year he appeared in the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and unprofessional. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times considered that Grant was "provokingly irresponsible, boyishly gay and also oddly mysterious, as the role properly demands". Hitchcock later stated that he thought the ending of the film in which Grant is sent to jail instead of committing suicide "a complete mistake because of making that story with Cary Grant. Unless you have a cynical ending it makes the story too simple". Geoff Andrew of Time Out believes Suspicion served as "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister".
In 1942, Grant participated in a three-week tour of the United States as part of a group to help the war effort and was photographed visiting wounded marines in hospital. He appeared in several routines of his own during these shows and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. In May 1942, when he was 38, the ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Charles Ruggles. On film, Grant played Leopold Dilg, a convict on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escapes after being wrongly convicted of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters played by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, and gradually plots to secure his freedom. Crowther praised the script, and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness which is slightly disturbing". After a role as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the off-beat comedy Once Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was praised for his scenes with Rogers, he appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, playing a gambler in a casino aboard a ship. The commercially successful submarine war film Destination Tokyo (1943) was shot in just six weeks in the September and October, which left him exhausted; the reviewer from Newsweek thought it was one of the finest performances of his career.
In 1944, Grant starred alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre, in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, who belongs to a bizarre family which includes two murderous aunts and an uncle claiming to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally offered to Bob Hope, who turned it down owing to schedule conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to contend with and believed that it was the worst performance of his career. That year he received his second Oscar nomination for a role, opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. Late in the year he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a tormented character who hysterically discovers that his amnesia has affected masculine order in society in The Black Curtain.
1946–1953: Post-War success and slump
After making a brief cameo appearance opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946), Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946). The production proved to be problematic, with scenes often requiring multiple takes, frustrating the cast and crew. Grant next appeared with Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), playing a government agent who recruits the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Bergman) to infiltrate a Nazi organization in Brazil after World War II. During the course of the film Grant and Bergman's characters fall in love and share one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell notes how Grant's performance "underlined how far his unique qualities as a screen actor had matured in the years since The Awful Truth".
In 1947, Grant played an artist who becomes involved in a court case when charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (released in the U.K. as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. The film was praised by the critics, who admired the picture's slapstick qualities and chemistry between Grant and Loy; it became one of the biggest-selling films at the box office that year. Later that year he starred opposite David Niven and Loretta Young in the comedy The Bishop's Wife, playing an angel who is sent down from heaven to straighten out the relationship between the bishop (Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a major commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Life magazine called it "intelligently written and competently acted".
The following year, Grant played neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake in the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, again with Loy. Though the film lost money for RKO, Philip T. Hartung of Commonweal thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. In Every Girl Should Be Married, an "airy comedy", he appeared with Betsy Drake and Franchot Tone, playing a bachelor who is trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving character. He finished the year as the fourth most popular film star at the box office. In 1949, Grant starred alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride in which he appeared in scenes dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. During the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis and lost weight, affecting the way he looked in the picture. The film, based on the autobiography of Belgian resistance fighter Roger Charlier, proved to be successful, becoming the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox that year with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks's screwball comedies of the late 1930s. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture.
The early 1950s marked the beginning of a slump in Grant's career. His roles as a top brain surgeon who is caught in the middle of a bitter revolution in a Latin American country in Crisis, and as a medical-school professor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. Grant had become tired of being Cary Grant after twenty years, being successful, wealthy and popular, and remarked: "To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world". In 1952, Grant starred in the comedy Room for One More, playing an engineer husband who with his wife (Betsy Drake) adopt two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film the off-beat comedy Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Though the critic from Motion Picture Herald wrote gushingly that Grant had given a career's best with an "extraordinary and agile performance", which was matched by Rogers, it received a mixed reception overall. Grant had hoped that starring opposite Deborah Kerr in the romantic comedy Dream Wife would salvage his career, but it was a critical and financial failure upon release in July 1953, when Grant was 49. Though he was offered the leading part in A Star is Born, Grant decided against playing that character. He believed that his film career was over, and briefly left the industry.
1955–1959: Collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, playing a retired jewel thief named John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat", living in the French Riviera. Grant and Kelly worked well together during the production, which was one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. He found Hitchcock and Kelly to be very professional, and later stated that Kelly was "possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with". Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross of the successful To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it. Though critical reception to the overall film was mixed, Grant received high praise for his performance, with critics commenting on his suave, handsome appearance in the film.
In 1957, Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel sees the film as one of the definitive romantic pictures of the period, but remarks that Grant was not entirely successful in trying to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality". That year, Grant also appeared opposite Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but found that it was not possible because of his commitment to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was problematic, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating his colleagues and leaving the production after just a few weeks. Although Grant had an affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to woo Loren to marry him during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. The sexual tension between the two was so great during the making of Houseboat that the producers found it almost impossible to make. Later in 1958, Grant starred opposite Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet, playing a successful financier who has an affair with a famous actress (Bergman) while pretending to be a married man. During the filming he formed a closer friendship and gained new respect for her as an actress. Schickel stated that he thought the film was possibly the finest romantic comedy film of the era, and that Grant himself had professed that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first of five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nominations for his performance and finished the year as the most popular film star at the box office.
In 1959, Grant starred in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest, playing an advertising executive who becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. Like Indiscreet, it was warmly received by the critics and was a major commercial success,
and is now often listed as one of the greatest films of all time. Weiler, writing in The New York Times, praised Grant's performance, remarking that the actor "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising-man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional aplomb and grace". Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film which became very popular, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. Grant finished the year playing a U.S. Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis in the comedy Operation Petticoat. The reviewer from Daily Variety saw Grant's comic portrayal as a classic example of how to attract the laughter of the audience without lines, remarking that "In this film, most of the gags play off him. It is his reaction, blank, startled, etc., always underplayed, that creates or releases the humor". The film was major box office success, and in 1973, Deschner ranked the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office, with takings of $9.5 million.
1960–1966: Final film roles
In 1960, Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios. McCann notes that Grant took great relish in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and mannerisms", though the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. In 1962, Grant starred in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink, playing suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office worker, played by Doris Day. He invites her to his apartment in Bermuda, but her guilty conscience begins to take hold. The picture was praised by critics, and it received three Academy Award nominations, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, in addition to landing Grant another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Deschner ranked the film as the second highest grossing of Grant's career.
Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared in his last typically suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close relationship was clear on camera, though according to Hepburn, he was particularly worried during the filming that he would be criticized for being far too old for her and seen as a "cradle snatcher". Author Chris Barsanti writes: "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such ingenious entertainment. Grant and Hepburn play off each other like the pros that they are". The film, well received by the critics, is often called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made".
In 1964, Grant changed from his typically suave, distinguished screen persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose. The film was a major commercial success, and upon its release at Radio City at Christmas 1964 it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the record set by Charade the previous year. Grant's final film, Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo, and is set amid the backdrop of the housing shortage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Newsweek concluded: "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensable, the character he plays is almost wholly superfluous. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy except as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everyone". Hitchcock had asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain that year, only to learn that he had decided to retire.
Later years
Grant retired from the screen in 1966 at the age of 62 when his daughter Jennifer Grant was born in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanence and stability in her life. He had become increasingly disillusioned with cinema in the 1960s, rarely finding a script of which he approved. He remarked: "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum, but I discovered more important things in life". He knew after he had made Charade that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood was over. He expressed little interest in making a career comeback, and would respond to the suggestion with "fat chance". He did, however, briefly appear in the audience of the video documentary for Elvis's 1970 Las Vegas concert Elvis: That's the Way It Is. He was given the negatives from a number of his films in the 1970s, and he sold them to television for a sum of over two million dollars in 1975.
Morecambe and Stirling argue that Grant's absence from film after 1966 was not because he had "irrevocably turned his back on the film industry", but because he was "caught between a decision made and the temptation to eat a bit of humble pie and re-announce himself to the cinema-going public". In the 1970s, MGM was keen on remaking Grand Hotel (1932) and hoped to lure Grant out of retirement. Hitchcock had long wanted to make a film based on the idea of Hamlet, with Grant in the lead role. Grant stated that Warren Beatty had made a big effort to get him to play the role of Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait (1978), which eventually went to James Mason. Morecambe and Stirling claim that Grant had also expressed an interest in appearing in A Touch of Class (1973), The Verdict (1982), and a film adaptation of William Goldman's 1983 book about screenwriting, Adventures in the Screen Trade.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grant became troubled by the deaths of many close friends, including Howard Hughes in 1976, Howard Hawks in 1977, Lord Mountbatten and Barbara Hutton in 1979, Alfred Hitchcock in 1980, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman in 1982, and David Niven in 1983. At the funeral of Mountbatten, he was quoted as remarking to a friend: "I'm absolutely pooped, and I'm so goddamned old…. I'm going to quit all next year. I'm going to lie in bed…. I shall just close all doors, turn off the telephone, and enjoy my life". Grace Kelly's death was the hardest on him as it was unexpected, and the two had remained close friends after filming To Catch a Thief. Grant visited Monaco three or four times each year during his retirement, and showed his support for Kelly by joining the board of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put on a two-month retrospective of more than 40 of Grant's films. In 1982, he was honored with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He turned 80 on January 18, 1984, and Peter Bogdanovich noticed that a "serenity" had come over him. Grant was in good health until suffering a mild stroke in October that year. In the last few years of his life, he undertook tours of the United States in the one-man show A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. He made some 36 public appearances in his last four years, from New Jersey to Texas, and his audiences ranged from elderly film buffs to enthusiastic college students discovering his films for the first time. Grant admitted that the appearances were "ego-fodder", remarking that "I know who I am inside and outside, but it's nice to have the outside, at least, substantiated".
Business interests
Stirling refers to Grant as "one of the shrewdest businessmen ever to operate in Hollywood". His long-term friendship with Howard Hughes from the 1930s onward saw him invited into the most glamorous circles in Hollywood and their lavish parties. Biographers Morecambe and Stirling state that Hughes played a major role in the development of Grant's business interests so that by 1939, he was "already an astute operator with various commercial interests". Scott also played a role, encouraging Grant to invest his money in shares, making him a wealthy man by the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Grant and Barbara Hutton invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village, and teamed up with Richard Widmark, Roy Rogers, and Red Skelton to buy a hotel there. Behind his business interests was a particularly intelligent mind, to the point that his friend David Niven once said: "Before computers went into general release, Cary had one in his brain". Film critic David Thomson believes that Grant's intelligence came across on screen, and stated that "no one else looked so good and so intelligent at the same time".
After Grant retired from the screen, he became more active in business. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. This position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. His pay was modest in comparison to the millions of his film career, a salary of a reported $15,000 a year. Such was Grant's influence on the company that George Barrie once claimed that Grant had played a role in the growth of the firm to annual revenues of about $50 million in 1968, a growth of nearly 80% since the inaugural year in 1964. The position also permitted the use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
In 1975, Grant was an appointed director of MGM. In 1980, he sat on the board of MGM Films and MGM Grand Hotels following the division of the parent company. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in 1973, and he continued to promote the city throughout the 1970s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air". Grant later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), and Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987).
Personal life
Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also legally changed his name to "Cary Grant". At the time of his naturalization, he listed his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec".
One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the renowned Hollywood costume designer, appreciated his "meticulous" attention to detail and considered him to have had the greatest fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "almost obsessive maintenance" with tanning, which deepened the older he got, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of dress. McCann notes that because Grant came from a working-class background and was not well educated, he made a particular effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and absorb their knowledge, manners and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. His image was meticulously crafted from the early days in Hollywood, where he would frequently sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking, despite smoking two packs a day at the time. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s through hypnotherapy. He remained health conscious, staying very trim and athletic even into his late career, though Grant admitted he "never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit". He claimed that he did "everything in moderation. Except making love."
Grant's daughter Jennifer stated that her father made hundreds of friends from all walks of life, and that their house was frequently visited by the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Johnny Carson and his wife, Kirk Kerkorian, and Merv Griffin. She said that Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends and that the two men had a similar radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm", and were eternally "high on life". While raising Jennifer, Grant archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. Jennifer attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Grant lived with actor and companion Randolph (Randy) Scott off and on for 12 years. The two met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. While Scott's biographer Robert Nott states that there is no evidence that Grant and Scott were homosexual, it was common knowledge in Hollywood at the time that each was bisexual in behavior, before the Motion Picture Production Code and other factors made being forthright an even greater professional liability. Scotty Bowers, who knew them both, wrote, "I don't know if their wives ever knew what was going on between them." A few years before, Cary Grant had lived openly with gay Hollywood designer, Orry-Kelly." Their sexual relationship is explored in the film, Women He Undressed, about Kelly. Reportedly, because "Grant knew he needed to hide his sexuality in order to make it as an actor in Hollywood", their relationship ended. This political shift in Hollywood from general social acceptance of lesbian and gay life and relationships in the 1920s and early '30s to a more repressive and oppressive professional and cultural climate soon thereafter, including its impact on Cary and Randy, is well documented in a biography of William Haines, a homosexual actor of the era who refused to play the game of pretending to be straight. "The studio pushed [Grant] back into the arms of women... Cary had begun his pattern of frequent marriages; he'd continue to have affairs with men." Grant's daughter, Jennifer, has denied the claims. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Cary sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words. Grant became a fan of the comedians Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s, and remained friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.
Grant began experimenting with the drug LSD in the late 1950s, before it became popular. His wife at the time, Betsy Drake, displayed a keen interest in psychotherapy, and through her Grant developed a considerable knowledge of the field of psychoanalysis. Radiologist Mortimer Hartman began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant optimistic that the treatment could make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships. He had an estimated 100 sessions over several years. For a long time, Grant viewed the drug positively, and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy". Dyan Cannon claimed during a court hearing that he was an "apostle of LSD", and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a remedy to save their relationship. Grant later remarked that "taking LSD was an utterly foolish thing to do but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."
Relationships
Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934, at the Caxton Hall registry office in London. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that he had hit her. The two were involved in a bitter divorce case which was widely reported in the press, with Cherrill demanding $1,000 a week from him in benefits from his Paramount earnings. After the demise of the marriage, he dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937. They considered marriage and vacationed together in Europe in mid-1939, visiting the Roman villa of Dorothy Taylor Dentice di Frasso in Italy, but the relationship ended later that year.
He married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the wealthiest women in the world, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth. They were derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although Grant refused any financial settlement in a prenuptial agreement to avoid the accusation that he married for money. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. They divorced in 1945, although they remained the "fondest of friends". He dated Betty Hensel for a period, then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This proved to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.
Grant married Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and their daughter Jennifer was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; he frequently called her his "best production". He said of fatherhood:
My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important.
Grant and Cannon separated in August 1967.
On March 12, 1968, Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport, when a truck hit the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three broken ribs and bruising. A female companion, Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, was also injured in the accident. Nine days later, Grant and Cannon divorced.
Grant had a brief affair with actress Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s. He had been at odds with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was named as the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant announced that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, thus ending his 12-year boycott of the ceremony. Two days after this announcement, Bouron filed a paternity suit against him and publicly stated that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter, and she named him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one, and the court ordered her to remove his name from the certificate. Between 1973 and 1977, he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by the much younger Victoria Morgan.
On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior. The two had met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where Harris was working at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but it was not until 1979 that she moved to live with him in California. Grant's friends felt that she had a positive impact on him, and Prince Rainier of Monaco remarked that Grant had "never been happier" than he was in his last years with her.
Death
Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance in A Conversation with Cary Grant when he was taken ill; he had been feeling unwell as he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams photographed him there and thought that he still looked his usual suave self, but he noticed that he seemed very tired and that he stumbled once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was taken back to the Blackhawk Hotel where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was called and discovered that Grant was having a massive stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant refused to be taken to the hospital. The doctor recalled: "The stroke was getting worse. In only fifteen minutes he deteriorated rapidly. It was terrible watching him die and not being able to help. But he wouldn't let us." By 8:45 p.m., Grant had slipped into a coma and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the emergency room before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m., aged 82.
An editorial in The New York Times stated: "Cary Grant was not supposed to die. ... Cary Grant was supposed to stick around, our perpetual touchstone of charm and elegance and romance and youth." His body was taken back to California, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. No funeral was conducted for him following his request, which Roderick Mann remarked was appropriate for "the private man who didn't want the nonsense of a funeral". His estate was worth in the region of 60 to 80 million dollars; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.
Screen persona
McCann wrote that one of the reasons why Grant's film career was so successful is that he was not conscious of how handsome he was on screen, acting in a fashion which was most unexpected and unusual from a Hollywood star of that period. George Cukor once stated: "You see, he didn't depend on his looks. He wasn't a narcissist, he acted as though he were just an ordinary young man. And that made it all the more appealing, that a handsome young man was funny; that was especially unexpected and good because we think, 'Well, if he's a Beau Brummel, he can't be either funny or intelligent', but he proved otherwise". Jennifer Grant acknowledged that her father neither relied on his looks nor was a character actor, and said that he was just the opposite of that, playing the "basic man".
Grant's appeal was unusually broad among both men and women. Pauline Kael remarked that men wanted to be him and women dreamed of dating him. She noticed that Grant treated his female co-stars differently than many of the leading men at the time, regarding them as subjects with multiple qualities rather than "treating them as sex objects". Leslie Caron said that he was the most talented leading man she worked with. David Shipman writes that "more than most stars, he belonged to the public". A number of critics have argued that Grant had the rare star ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. Philip T. Hartung of The Commonweal stated in his review for Mr. Lucky (1943) that, if it "weren't for Cary Grant's persuasive personality, the whole thing would melt away to nothing at all". Political theorist C. L. R. James saw Grant as a "new and very important symbol", a new type of Englishman who differed from Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, who represented the "freedom, natural grace, simplicity, and directness which characterise such different American types as Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan", which ultimately symbolized the growing relationship between Britain and America.
McCann notes that Grant typically played "wealthy privileged characters who never seemed to have any need to work in order to maintain their glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle". Martin Stirling thought that Grant had an acting range which was "greater than any of his contemporaries", but felt that a number of critics underrated him as an actor. He believes that Grant was always at his "physical and verbal best in situations that bordered on farce". Charles Champlin identifies a paradox in Grant's screen persona, in his unusual ability to "mix polish and pratfalls in successive scenes". He remarks that Grant was "refreshingly able to play the near-fool, the fey idiot, without compromising his masculinity or surrendering to camp for its own sake". Wansell further notes that Grant could, "with the arch of an eyebrow or the merest hint of a smile, question his own image". Stanley Donen stated that his real "magic" came from his attention to minute details and always seeming real, which came from "enormous amounts of work" rather than being God-given. Grant remarked of his career: "I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person, or he became me". He professed that the real Cary Grant was more like his scruffy, unshaven fisherman in Father Goose than the "well-tailored charmer" of Charade.
Grant often poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines such as in His Girl Friday (1940): "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. Alfred Hitchcock thought that Grant was very effective in darker roles, with a mysterious, dangerous quality, remarking that "there is a frightening side to Cary that no one can quite put their finger on". Wansell notes that this darker, mysterious side extended to his personal life, which he took great lengths to cover up in order to retain his debonair image.
Legacy
Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order" and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer".
Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". Presenting the award to Grant, Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar. In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
Grant was portrayed by John Gavin in the 1980 made-for-television biographical film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
Filmography and stage work
From 1932 to 1966, Grant starred in over seventy films. In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Widely recognized for comedic and dramatic roles, among his best-known films are Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).
Notes
References
Sources
Also published by Columbia University Press, 1998; preview available online.
(a probable mirror/plagiarism of Wikipedia case)
Further reading
External links
1904 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century English male actors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American autobiographers
American male film actors
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British expatriate male actors in the United States
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English autobiographers
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"Nisco Invest is a Romanian real estate development company focused on the construction of multi-purpose centres, offices, and residential compounds in Transylvania. It is a part of the holding company administered by Dan Călin Nistor of Cluj-Napoca.\n\nNisco Invest is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), focused on residential real estate projects for business and multifunctional centres. In 2004 Nisco was awarded third place in the Top Romanian Companies in the real estate transactions category.\n\nExternal links\nNisco Invest\nAkademia Center Cluj\n\nCompanies based in Cluj-Napoca",
"Scott Picken is a South African-born real estate investor and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Wealth Migrate, a fintech company that offers real estate investments on its online marketplace through crowdfunding. He began offering real estate investment solutions at the age of 26 when he founded International Property Solutions. The Huffington Post named Wealth Migrate as one of the top 60 real estate crowdfunding solutions in the United States in 2014.\n\nPicken is the author of Property Going Global.\n\nEarly life and education\nPicken grew up in South Africa, before he moved to London to study. In 1998, Picken wrote his dissertation on how he expected technology to change the way we invest in property. He moved to London to continue his education. Picken graduated in 2001 with a master's degree, also studying the effect of technology on real estate investing.\n\nCareer\nAfter leaving University, Picken setup International Property Solutions (IPS) at the age of 26. The company assisted people with overseas investments in his native South Africa. During the next few years, Picken helped thousands of people invest in property on four different continents.\n\nDuring an interview, Picken recalled the opportunity to invest in property after the 2008 financial crisis hit. He stated that there were incredible buying opportunities in Wimbledon, London at the time. In order to capitalize on these opportunities, he required £10 million but didn't have the time to raise the funds. He decided that after missing the buying opportunity, he would be interested in creating a vehicle that allowed investors to have quick access to buying power.\n\nFollowing the development of the idea, Picken co-founded Wealth Migrate with Hennie Bezuidenhoudt as his co-founder. The company was launched to assist people to invest in real estate assets, through various partnerships. Picken took the step of using a number of existing partners to launch the crowdfunding platform. Picken was interviewed in the media on a regular basis following the launch of the innovative company. The platform allowed individuals to invest in property around the world.\n\nThe idea was further developed by Picken after he studied the figures behind small investments made in real estate. Using equity companies as an example, they would often invest a small percentage of their funds into real estate. Serious investors would likely use a middleman for these transactions, which would dramatically affect the return on investment. Wealth Migrate's margins were not only lower than traditional charges, but it also made larger projects more accessible to the common real estate investor.\n\nPicken stated in an interview with CNBC that investors could make both residential and commercial investments. Individual investors would normally struggle to invest in larger projects, as they would have to either find the partners themselves or find other ways to raise the full capital amount. Wealth Migrate would allow capital investments as low as $10,000 for investors. The idea was launched in South Africa, before expanding abroad.\n\nAfter five years in operation, Wealth Migrate was selected by The Huffington Post as one of the top United States Real Estate Crowdfunding Platforms. The selection likely came off the back of the growth of the real estate crowdfunding market, which grew to $2.5 billion in transactions in a single year in 2014.\n\nPicken featured in the news during 2015, discussing how he felt crowdfunding would radically change the way real estate transactions take place globally. He raised $4 million in capital for Wealth Migrate for further expansion in the same year. The Wealth Migrate brand expanded its operations to Asia in 2015, under the leadership of Picken.\n\nInvestments\nDuring an interview with CNBC, Picken discussed his investment strategy for Wealth Migrate in the London-area. The commercial real estate opportunity was based on converting abandoned pubs in the United Kingdom into convenience stores. The moves received coverage in the British media, as many supermarket chains used this as a method to open convenience stores in the country in recent years.\n\nPicken suggested in an interview with GQ (magazine) that investments made by his firm are 70% commercial and 30% residential. The platform was developed to give serious investors the opportunity to make alternative commercial investments when compared to more traditional routes.\n\nOne of the major examples that were quoted on CNBC Africa, was the investment made in the medical market. Picken stated that Wealth Migrate invested close to hospitals geographically, which allowed a steady return on the investment. Another example given was the investment and purchasing of commercial property around London, where they would then rent the property to a convenience store company once it had been purchased.\n\nPublications\nPicken is the author of the book, Property Going Global.\n\nReferences\n\nSouth African businesspeople\nSouth African investors\nSouth African writers"
] |
[
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela",
"Death and funeral"
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | when did she die? | 1 | When did Winnie Madikzela Mandela die? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | true | [
"Sonja Herholdt (born 1 December 1952) is a South African singer-songwriter and Afrikaner actress.\n\nPersonal life\nHerholdt was born in the small Gauteng mining village of Nigel and at the age of three made her first singing performance at the local community recreation hall, singing the Afrikaans lullaby Slaap, my Kindjie.\n\nShe attended the Afrikaans-medium Tini Vorster Primary and Hoërskool John Vorster where she became Head Girl in both and followed her theatrical pursuits.\n\nShe later obtained a diploma cum laude in Teaching after three years at the Johannesburg (Goudstad) College of Education. She gave up teaching to pursue music after meeting her future husband, FC Hamman. The couple married in 1976 and started a family, their youngest son later developed an extreme hearing impairment in 1993. Herholdt subsequently decided to start a school for hearing and linguistically impaired Afrikaans children, this was housed in the pre-primary section of Bryanston Primary School. This resulted in Herholdt returning to teach for a period of time.\n\nIn 1996, Herholdt was involved in a serious car accident. She and her husband subsequently divorced after 21 years of marriage.\n\nIn collaboration with Carel Cronjé, she released her autobiography in 2007 Sonja: Meisie van Nigel. Later that year she was injured in a robbery on the way home from Cronjé's Johannesburg home.\n\nCareer\nHer breakthrough came when she did a spot on Gwynneth Ashley Robin's show and was soon asked to record Ek Verlang Na Jou. The single went gold in South Africa, selling over 25 000 copies.\n\nHer subsequent albums and singles earned her similar critical and commercial success. She went on to win a total of eight Sarie awards. In the 1970s and 1980s, she was frequently the best-selling female artist in South Africa.\n\nIn 1979, she finally fulfilled her ambition to act by starring in Sing vir die Harlekyn, and winning a Rapport Oscar-Award as Best Female Newcomer.\n\nShe later enjoyed music success in Europe, she holds the distinction of being the first ever South African singer to be invited to perform in the Netherlands on their local Television. She recorded her song Oberammergau in Dutch. She also performed in Belgium, pushing Oberammergau into fifth place in the Belgian charts.\n\nIn 1989, she performed at the Religious Broadcasting Corporation in Washington, coinciding with the release of her gospel album, The Warrior is a Child.\n\nIn 1991, she received an award from the Afrikaans Chamber of Commerce for her services to Afrikaans music.\n\nIn 1995, she signed an album contract with BMG Records, enjoying success with the title track of her new BMG compilation, Skipskop. Her 1998 album Ritsel in die Rietbos did not meet critical and commercial expectations. But she rebounded with the critically acclaimed 2000 album, Reconstructing Alice.\n\nIn 2002 she developed her own record company, Son Music and released Sonjare, a nostalgic retrospective of her original hits.\n\nDiscography\nHerholdt has recorded several albums and singles since the 1970s;\n\nAlbums\nSonja (1976)\nSonja Herholdt (1977)\nOn stage/In die kalklig (1978)\nWaterblommetjies (1978)\n'n Lied vir Kersfees (1979)\nHarlekyn (Gold) (1979)\nGrootste Treffers (1980)\nWaarom Daarom (1981)\nReflections (1982)\nLiefdeslig (1984)\nLofsang – Sonja Herholdt en Jan de Wet (1985)\nDis net vir jou (1987)\nSonja Herholdt sing die Jeugsangbundel (1987)\nSonja Herholdt sing die Jeugsangbundel 2 (1988)\nTuiskoms (1988)\nDie Klokkespel 'Vrede (1989)\nThe Warrior is a Child (1989)\n'n Ster Vanaand (1994)\nTuiskoms (1995)\nMore sal die son weer skyn (1996)\nRitsel in die Rietbos (1998)\nReconstructing Alice (2000)\nSonjare\n20 Gunsteling treffers\nDis Kersfees\nSonja Herholdt Skipskop\nDie mense wat ek liefhet*Gunsteling treffers (1992)\nSê die engele moet kyk na my (1994)\nDie verhale van vrouwees\nShe\nShe The Princess\nLiefling die movie\nPêrels\n\nAwards\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\nSonja Herholdt at Who's Who Southern Africa\n\n1952 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Nigel, Gauteng\nAfrikaner people\nAfrikaans-language singers\n20th-century South African women singers\nSouth African actresses\nSouth African people of German descent",
"\"The Lazy Spinner\" or \"The Lazy Spinning Woman\" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 128. It is Aarne-Thompson type 1405.\n\nSynopsis\n\nA lazy woman did not like to spin and when she did, did not wind onto a reel, but left it on the bobbin. Her husband complained, and she said she needed a reel to do that, but when he went to cut one, she sneaked after and called out that whoever cut a reel would die. This put him off cutting it, but he still complained. She then made some yarn and said it must be boiled. Then she put some tow in the pot instead and set her husband to watch. After some time, he opened the pot, saw the tow, and thought he had ruined the yarn. From then on, the husband didn't dare complain.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Lazy Spinner\nThe Lazy Spinning Woman\n\nLazy Spinner\nTextiles in folklore"
] |
[
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela",
"Death and funeral",
"when did she die?",
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018"
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | how did she die? | 2 | How did Winnie Madikzela Mandela die? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | true | [
"The 2008 North Korean Census was the second North Korea national census. The reference day used for the census was October 1, 2008. The census was taken by house-to-house interviews by enumerators using a census questionnaire. Roughly 35,000 enumerators were trained to help with the census. The population of North Korea was counted as 24,052,231 a 13.38% increase from the 1993 Census.\n\nThe results of the census are thought of as plausible by foreign observers.\n\nThe census was widely advertised in propaganda. This resulted in a detailed survey.\n\nThe 2008 census is the latest census of North Korea. The next census was scheduled for 2018.\n\nIntroduction \nNorth Korea completed its first census in 1993. In October 2006, a declaration was enacted to complete a second census in 2008. In order to test procedures, in October 2007, there was a pilot census completed across each of the provinces where roughly 50,000 households were counted. The actual census took place from October 1 – October 15, 2008 using October 1, 2008 at 1:00 AM as a reference point.\n\nQuestionnaire \nThere were several questions asked on the census broken into three modules:\n\nThe first module was titled Household and dwelling unit information. There were 14 questions in this module pertaining to the persons' housing unit. If the respondent lived in an institutional living quarter, then the rest of the section was skipped. All of the questions are listed below:\n\n How many are the members of this household?\n Type of Household\n What is the class of labor of head of this household?\n What is the previous class of labor of head of this household?\n What type of dwelling does this household occupy?\n Does this household have the first right to occupancy of this dwelling unit?\n What is the total floor area of this dwelling unit?\n How many rooms are there in this dwelling unit? (Exclude sitting room, Kitchen)\n Is there a water tap in this dwelling unit?\n What is the source of water supply for your household? \n What kind of toilet facility does your household have access to?\n What heating system is established in your household?\n What heating system is used by your household?\n Which fuel is used for cooking?\n\nThe second module was titled personal information and had the most questions of any of the modules. There was a total of 29 questions to be asked including sex, nationality, school level, marital status, and employment.\n\nThe third module was titled mortality. The first question was \"Did any member of this household die during the period 1 Oct. 2007 to 30 Sept. 2008?\" If the answer was no, the rest of this section was skipped. If the answer was yes, then five additional questions were asked. If the deceased person was a female between 15 and 49, five more additional questions were asked. All ten additional questions are listed below.\n\n What was/were the name(s) of the household member(s) who died?\n Sex\n When was _ born?\n When did _die?\n How old was __ when he/she died?\n Was pregnant at the time of her death?\n Did ___ die while having abortion or miscarriage or within 42 days of having abortion/miscarriage?\n Did _ die while giving birth or within 42 days of giving birth?\n Where did _die? (Home, Hospital, or Other)\n Did she have a live birth anytime between 1 0ct. 2007 and the time of death? If \"Yes\", How many male and female children did she give birth at that time?\n\nRankings\n\nSee also\n\n Demographics of North Korea\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n \n\nCensuses in North Korea\nNorth Korea\nCensus",
"How To Kill is the first EP by the Canadian rock band Die Mannequin, released on September 25, 2006. Produced by electronic music group MSTRKRFT, How To Kill was the group's first release and because Care Failure had yet to put together a full-time band she performed the vocals, guitar and bass herself with the drums being handled by Jesse F. Keeler of MSTRKRFT and Death from Above 1979 fame.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Care Failure, except \"Fatherpunk\" by Care Failure and Michael T. Fox.\n\n\"Autumn Cannibalist\" – 3:23\n\"Near The End\" – 2:47\n\"Fatherpunk\" – 3:13\n\"Donut Kill Self\" – 4:31\n\nPersonnel\nDie Mannequin\nCare Failure – lead vocals, guitar, bass\nJesse F. Keeler – drums, percussion\n\nTechnical staff and artwork\nRecorded & Produced by MSTRKRFT.\nArt by Care Failure / Marc P.\n\nSee also\nDie Mannequin\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\nMyspace\n\n2006 EPs"
] |
[
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela",
"Death and funeral",
"when did she die?",
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018",
"how did she die?",
"She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries."
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | When was her funeral? | 3 | When was Winnie Madikzela Mandela's funeral? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | true | [
"Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii, died November 11, 1917. The royal standard (flag) was raised over her home at Washington Place to signal to the public that she was deceased. Under military guard, her body was moved at midnight for embalming. After the traditional Hawaiian mourning of chanting and wailing, the public was allowed to view her body covered only by a shroud. Her state funeral was held in the throne room of Iolani Palace, on November 18, 1917, followed by her funeral procession to the Royal Mausoleum of Mauna ʻAla. An estimated 1,500 adults and children were in the funeral procession.\n\nDeath\n\nShe died at her residence Washington Place, at 8:30 a.m. on November 11, 1917, at the age of seventy-nine. According to her lady-in-waiting Lahilahi Webb, the Queen had been in rapidly failing health and diminished mental capacity during the weeks immediately preceding her death. Besides Webb, those who were with her at the end were her doctor William Cotton Hobdy, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, and his wife Elizabeth Kahanu Kalanianaʻole. Her private secretary and trustee of her deed of trust, Curtis P. Iaukea, immediately raised her royal standard (flag) over Washington Place to signal her death. Iaukea's wife Charlotte Kahaloipua Hanks, and two elderly royal retainers Wakeke Ululani Heleluhe and Onaala, were also in attendance at the Queen's death.\n\nState funeral\nIaukea was in charge of making the funeral arrangements, but territorial governor Lucius E. Pinkham accorded her the honor of a state funeral and took charge of it. According to Hawaiian tradition, it was believed that the birth and death of an aliʻi would be heralded by a natural phenomena. Schools of the red āweoweo fish, traditionally associated with the death of a member of the Hawaiian royal family, were seen off the coast of Oahu months before Liliuokalani's death.\n\nFollowing the raising of the royal standard, Hawaiian royalty and non-royalty arrived to pay their respects. The Hawaiian National Guard under Brigadier General Samuel Johnson was stationed at the gates. In accordance with Native Hawaiian tradition that dictated the body of a deceased royal could only be moved after dark, Liliuokalani's body was transferred under military guard at midnight on Monday along torch-lit streets to Kawaiahaʻo Church for embalming. On Tuesday, her body lay in state for 12 hours without a casket, covered only by a silk shroud, for the traditional Hawaiian mourning of chanting and wailing. Afterwards, the body was placed inside the casket for viewing until 6 p.m. on Saturday. She received a state funeral in the throne room of Iolani Palace, on November 18, 1917.\n\nAs her catafalque was moved from the palace up Nuuanu Avenue with 1200-foot ropes pulled by 204 stevedores, for entombment with her family members in the Kalākaua Crypt of the Royal Mausoleum of Mauna ʻAla, composer Charles E. King led a youth choir in \"Aloha ʻOe\". The song was picked up by the procession participants and the crowds of people along the route. Films were taken of the funeral procession and later stored at ʻĀinahau, the former residence of her sister and niece. A fire on August 1, 1921, destroyed the home and all its contents, including the footage of the Queen's funeral.\n\nFor a week, the casket was placed on a bier in the underground Kalākaua Crypt where Webb, Wakeke and her daughter Myra Heleluhe stood vigil over the remains. On November 26, following a ceremony officiated by many of the participants of the earlier funeral, the casket was sealed in a niche adjoining the one containing her husband John Owen Dominis.\n\nW. F. Aldrich created a film of the state funeral.\n\nSince the state funeral took place during the recess of the territorial legislature, Kūhiō, Iaukea, William Owen Smith and five other businessmen and politicians borrowed money from the Bank of Hawaii to cover the expenditures. The state funeral cost the territorial government a total of $8,500.\n\nProcession order\n\nAlthough exact counts vary in the news coverage, it was estimated that thousands adults and children marched in the funeral procession. The order of procession also varied slightly in different sources.\n\nGallery\n\nSee also\nDeath and two state funerals of Kalākaua\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nFunerals by person\nState funerals in the United States\nHistory of Hawaii\n1917 in Hawaii\nDeaths by person in the United States\nHouse of Kalākaua",
"Alice Brady (1898–1914) was a labour activist that was shot and killed during the 1913 Dublin Lock-out. She was shot accidentally in the hand by a worker and died two weeks later of tetanus. The worker was charged but acquitted of her murder. Members from the Irish Women Workers' Union used her funeral as a show of strength. A service was held on Saturday, 4 January 2014 to mark the centenary of Brady's funeral, and RTÉ One broadcast a documentary on the lockout involving descendants of participants and members of Brady's family.\n\nLife and career\n\nBrady was born in 1898 in Dublin, Ireland into a working-class family to parents Michael and Elizabeth (née Flynn). Alice was the eldest of six children, four surviving past infancy. Brady worked for Jacob's factory in Dublin and was a member of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU). Brady was among the first people to die as a result of the social conflict surrounding the 1913 Lockout. She died at 16 years of age after being shot during a riot associated with the Lock-out.\n\nLockout and death\nBrady was 16 when she was shot in the hand during a minor riot in Dublin city, in which she had not been involved. She was returning home after receiving a food relief parcel. Some sources, such as Francis Devane say the incident happened in Great Brunswick Street but other publications at the time say it happened in Mark Street. The riot was caused when a group of women screamed at coal workers, who apparently broke the strike. One worker, Patrick Traynor, panicked and shot into the crowd twice. In the court case it was argued that Traynor did not intend to shoot at anyone and did not aim at Brady. However Traynor was charged, and later acquitted, of the murder of Brady. She died on 1 January 1914, two weeks after being shot, in Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital as a result of her developing tetanus (lockjaw) from the bullet wound.\n\nFuneral\nThousands gathered to pay respect at Brady's funeral on 5 January 1914. There was a funeral cortège from her home in 21a Luke Street to Glasnevin Cemetery. Reportedly 500 members from the Irish Women Workers' Union attended the funeral and the union used the occasion as a show of strength. Many prominent faces of the Lockout were amongst the mourners, including James Larkin, Delia Larkin, Countess Markievicz, and James Connolly. Both Larkin and Connolly delivered orations at the graveside. In his speech Connolly said, \"Every scab and every employer of scab labour in Dublin is morally responsible for the death of the young girl we have just buried.\" Larkin spoke candidly at Brady's funeral, \"Though she was only a young girl she had shown great strength of character, and if she had been spared, she would, I believe, have been a great woman.\" Brady's death was often cited within publications and speeches of the time, one of the most noted being by Connolly who described her as a \"as true a martyr for freedom.\"\n\nCommemorative celebrations\nA service was held on Saturday, 4 January 2014 organised by the 1913 Committee, SIPTU trade union, and Equality Department and the Glasnevin Trust to mark the centenary of Brady's funeral. RTÉ One broadcast a documentary on Monday 16 December 2013, \"My Lockout\" involving descendants of participants, including members of Brady's family, as well as experts on the Lockout to give historical context.\n\nReferences\n\n1898 births\n1914 deaths\nTrade unionists from Dublin (city)\nBurials at Glasnevin Cemetery\nProtest-related deaths\nDeaths by firearm in the Republic of Ireland"
] |
[
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela",
"Death and funeral",
"when did she die?",
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018",
"how did she die?",
"She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries.",
"When was her funeral?",
"Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018."
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | Where was she buried? | 4 | Where was Winnie Madikzela Mandela buried? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | true | [
"Johanna Maria Louise Loisinger (18 April 1865 – 20 July 1951) was an Austrian actress, pianist and operatic soprano singer. She was born in Preßburg, Austria (today Bratislava), the daughter of John Loisinger and Maria Meier.\n\nAfter she had completed her singing studies, Loisinger sang in Prague, Troppau (today Opava), Linz and at the court theatre in Darmstadt. She was a well-known singer of the works of Mozart.\n\nLoisinger married Prince Alexander of Battenberg (1857–1893) on 6 February 1889 in Menton, Alpes-Maritimes, France. The prince had resigned from the Bulgarian throne in 1886 and had assumed the style of Count von Hartenau, so Loisinger became the Countess von Hartenau. The couple settled in Graz, Austria, and had two children, Assen Ludwig Alexander (1890–1965) and Marie Therese Vera Zvetana (1893–1935). After her husband's early death, she moved to Vienna, where she was an active patron of musical organisations. Among other posts, she was president of the Vienna Symphony.\n\nLoisinger died on 20 July 1951 in Vienna. She was buried in St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz where her daughter Zvetana was previously buried.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1865 births\n1951 deaths\nJohanna\nActors from Bratislava\nAustrian operatic sopranos\n19th-century Austrian actresses\nAustrian women pianists\n20th-century Austrian women opera singers\n19th-century Austrian women opera singers\nMusicians from Bratislava\nMusicians from Vienna",
"Bridget Cromwell (1624 – June 1662) was Oliver Cromwell's eldest daughter. She married General Henry Ireton and after he died General Charles Fleetwood.\n\nLife\nShe was born to Elizabeth (born Bouchier) and Oliver Cromwell in 1624. Cromwell comes to notice in 1646 when she marries Henry Ireton who was a close colleague of her father. She had her portrait painted by Cornelius Johnson and that picture is now in Chequers Court.\n\nIn 1651 they went to Ireland where Henry encouraged the Partiamentarian cause. Bridget did not stay long and she was in England when the news of her husband's death reached her. He had died on 26 November 1651 at Limerick.\n\nIn 1652 she married another friend of her father, General Charles Fleetwood. Like her first husband, he was sent to Ireland to lead the army. This time Bridget went to Ireland for much longer and staying from 1652 to 1655. After the Restoration, she lived in London. Her husband was prevented from further leadership and she had to withstand the exhumation of her and Fleetwood's infant child from Westminster Abbey where the child had been buried. Her first husband was not only exhumed but his dead body was hanged in revenge for Henry's involvement in the regicide of Charles I. She died in June 1662 and she was survived by at least seven children. At least three of them had Fleetwood as a father and the rest were the children of Ireton. She was buried in St Anne's Church in Blackfriars, London. One of her daughters was Bridget Bendish.\n\nReferences\n\n1624 births\n1662 deaths\n17th-century English people\n17th-century English women\nBridget\nChildren of Oliver Cromwell"
] |
[
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"when did she die?",
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018",
"how did she die?",
"She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries.",
"When was her funeral?",
"Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018.",
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"After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service."
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | Did she outlive her spouse? | 5 | Did Winnie Madikzela Mandela outlive her spouse? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | false | [
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] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 6 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article, in addition to Winnie Madikzela Mandela and her family? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | 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"
] |
[
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela",
"Death and funeral",
"when did she die?",
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018",
"how did she die?",
"She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries.",
"When was her funeral?",
"Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018.",
"Where was she buried?",
"After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.",
"Did she outlive her spouse?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to \"fight for space\" on the programme."
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | Why did they have to fight for space? | 7 | Why did Winnie Madikzela Mandela's family have to fight for space? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | true | [
"\"To the Death\" is the 95th episode of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the 23rd episode of the fourth season. \"To the Death\" achieved a Nielsen rating of 6 points when it originally premiered.\n\nSet in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the crew of the Starfleet-managed space station Deep Space Nine, located adjacent to a wormhole that leads to the distant Gamma Quadrant. The Gamma Quadrant is controlled by an expansionist empire known as the Dominion, ruled by the shape-shifting Changelings, who have genetically engineered the relentless Jem'Hadar to be their soldiers. In this episode, the Deep Space Nine crew join a Jem'Hadar team to prevent renegade Jem'Hadar from using a gateway that could transport them anywhere in the galaxy.\n\nThis episode marks the debut of the recurring character Weyoun, played by Jeffrey Combs.\n\nPlot\nAfter Deep Space Nine is attacked by a group of Jem'Hadar, Captain Sisko and his crew pursue them into the Gamma Quadrant aboard the Defiant. They find a disabled Jem'Hadar warship transmitting a distress signal and rescue the survivors: six Jem'Hadar soldiers and Weyoun, their Vorta master.\n\nWeyoun tells Sisko that the Jem'Hadar who attacked Deep Space Nine are renegades who have turned against the Dominion and are trying to restore an ancient Iconian Gateway—a sophisticated transporter that would give them the power to go anywhere in the galaxy instantaneously. Sisko agrees to join forces with Weyoun to destroy the Gateway before the renegade Jem'Hadar can use it. The Defiant crew forms an uneasy alliance with Weyoun and his Jem'Hadar, led by Omet'iklan. It soon becomes clear that Weyoun and Omet'iklan hold each other in contempt.\n\nThe Defiant crew try to learn to fight alongside the Jem'Hadar, who do not fear death or value their own lives. Their alliance is tested when Toman'torax, the Jem'Hadar second-in-command, picks a fight with Lieutenant Commander Worf. After breaking up the fight, Sisko and Omet'iklan discipline their men for brawling: Omet'iklan executes Toman'torax on the spot, while Sisko confines Worf to quarters. Omet'iklan is disgusted by what he perceives as lax discipline, and warns Sisko he will kill him when the mission is over. Meanwhile, Weyoun attempts to convince Odo, a renegade Changeling who opposes the Dominion, to rejoin the Dominion's Founders, whom the Vorta and Jem'Hadar alike revere as gods.\n\nWhen they arrive on the planet where the Gateway is located, they find that the presence of the Gateway disables their phasers. They are attacked by a team of renegade Jem'Hadar. After a short but vicious battle, the group makes its way to the Gateway, engaging in sword and hand-to-hand combat all the way. In the fighting, Sisko saves Omet'iklan's life while risking his own; Omet'iklan does not understand why Sisko would save his life.\n\nThey destroy the Gateway with an explosive, which allows their weapons to function again. Omet'iklan kills Weyoun for questioning the Jem'Hadar's loyalty to the Founders. He compliments Sisko for the way they fought together, but reminds him that the next time they meet, they will be enemies again. Omet'iklan and his soldiers stay behind to hunt down the remaining Jem'Hadar for their disloyalty.\n\nConnections to other episodes\nThe Iconian gateway was first introduced in Contagion, an episode from season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.\n\nAlthough the character of Weyoun is killed in this episode, the writers were impressed enough by Jeffrey Combs's performance in the role that they had the character return in the later episode \"Ties of Blood and Water\", establishing that the Vorta are clones who can be replaced when killed.\n\nReception \nIn 2015, Geek.com recommended this episode as \"essential watching\" for their abbreviated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine binge-watching guide.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n1996 American television episodes\nStar Trek: Deep Space Nine (season 4) episodes\nTelevision episodes directed by LeVar Burton",
"May 20, 2021 KC Space Pirates won one of 4 $50,000 second place prizes in phase 1 of NASA's Watts on the Moon Challenge.\n\nKC Space Pirates competed in the 2006, 2007, and 2009 Space Elevator Games. Prize money was from the NASA Centennial Challenges Power Beaming Challenge.\n\nThe competition was put on by the Spaceward Foundation. The goal of the competition was to encourage universities and groups to research and create designs for beaming power to distant objects. For the competition Spaceward used the Space Elevator concept to make it more challenging and to help show how beamed power could work. NASA has put up the top prize of up to 2,000,000 ($900,000 for the 2 meters/second category and $1,100,000 for the 5 meters/second category) for the 2009 competition. The 2 meters/second prize was won during the 2009 competition. The 5 m/s challenge remained open for the 2010 competition that was canceled.\n\nThe competition was in the form of a race, 1 km (3,281 ft) straight up. The climbers are unmanned, have a maximum allowed weight of 25 kg (55 lbs), and may use no fuel or batteries to climb—they must only be powered by beamed energy. So far, the top designs have been reflected sunlight and laser. The KC Space Pirates used sunlight reflected off of a large array of mirrors concentrated onto a highly efficient array of solar cells in 2006 and 2007. They switched to using an infrared laser for the 2009 competition.\n\nThe KC Space Pirates was the only 2009 team to have a fully automated laser tracking system. They did well in each competition but fell short of the money.\n\nExternal links\nSpace Elevator Competition web site\nKC Space Pirates web site\n12 minute broadcast segment on the competition by PBS Nova\nNASA page on the Space Elevator\nCNN article\n\nSpace organizations\nOrganizations based in the United States\nSpace elevator"
] |
[
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela",
"Death and funeral",
"when did she die?",
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018",
"how did she die?",
"She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries.",
"When was her funeral?",
"Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018.",
"Where was she buried?",
"After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.",
"Did she outlive her spouse?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to \"fight for space\" on the programme.",
"Why did they have to fight for space?",
"At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa \"acknowledged\" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles."
] | C_789b98270fac4965984e009af26fd528_1 | what legal troubles did she have? | 8 | what legal troubles did Winnie Madikzela Mandela have? | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year". In the lead-up to Madikizela Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema, delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service. A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint". CANNOTANSWER | saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason". | Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence" in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found Madikizela-Mandela to have been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, most notoriously the killing of 14-year-old Stompie Sepei whose kidnapping she was convicted of.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, and the couple separated in 1992; their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She visited him during his final illness. As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government, although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption. In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.
Early life and education
Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo ("She who tries"). She was born in the village of Mbongweni,
Bizana, Pondoland, in what is now the Eastern Cape province. She was the fifth of nine children, seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, who had a white father and Xhosa mother, were both teachers. Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine years old, resulting in the break-up of her family when the siblings were sent to live with different relatives. Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl at her high school in Bizana.
Upon leaving school, she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. She earned a degree in social work in 1956, and decades later earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei; including with the Transkei government, living at various points of time at Bizana, Shawbury and Johannesburg. Her first job was as a social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Marriage to Nelson Mandela
Madikizela met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957, when he was still married to Evelyn Mase. She was 22 years old and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. The couple married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani (born 1958) and Zindziwa (born 1960). Mandela was arrested and jailed in 1963, and was not released until 1990.
The couple separated in 1992. They finalised their divorce in March 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. During the divorce hearing, Nelson Mandela rejected Madikizela-Mandela's assertion that arbitration could salvage the marriage, and cited her infidelity as a cause of the divorce, saying "... I am determined to get rid of the marriage". Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US $5million (R70 million) – half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth – was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing.
When asked in a 1994 interview about the possibility of reconciliation, she said: "I am not fighting to be the country's First Lady. In fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone."
Madikizela-Mandela was involved in a lawsuit at the time of her death, claiming that she was entitled to Mandela's homestead in Qunu, through customary law, despite her divorce from Nelson Mandela in 1996. Her case was dismissed by the Mthatha High Court in 2016, and she was reportedly preparing to appeal to the Constitutional Court at the time of her death, after failing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in January 2018.
Apartheid: 1963–1985
Winnie Mandela emerged as a leading opponent of apartheid during the latter part of her husband's imprisonment. Due to her political activities, she was regularly detained by the National Party government. She was subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, imprisoned, and banished to the remote town of Brandfort.
Her longest jailing was for 491 days (as noted in her account 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69), beginning on 12 May 1969, at Pretoria Central Prison, where she spent months in solitary confinement, and was tortured and beaten. By her own account, her experience in prison "hardened" her.
From 1977 to 1985, she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State and confined to the area,. It was at this time that she became well known in the Western world. She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician, campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid. While in exile in Brandfort, she, and those who attempted to assist her, were harassed by the apartheid police.
In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.
Beaten by the apartheid police, she developed an addiction to painkillers and alcohol as a result of a back injury caused by the assault.
Violence and criminal proceedings
During a speech in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, Madikizela-Mandela endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using rubber tyres filled with petrol) by saying: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country." Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.
Return to Soweto and Mandela United Football Club: 1986–1989
Madikizela-Mandela returned to Soweto from Brandfort in late 1985, in defiance of a banning order. During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (CoSATU) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid. The new organisations relied more heavily on collective decision-making structures, rather than on individual charisma. She took a more militaristic approach, eschewing the approach of the newer bodies, and began dressing in military garb, and surrounding herself with bodyguards: the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC). Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder. She was implicated in at least 15 deaths during this time period.
In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. By 1989, after appeals from local residents, and after the Seipei kidnapping, the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM), "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid". The ANC in exile issued a statement criticising her judgment, after she refused to heed instructions, issued from prison by Nelson Mandela, to dissociate herself from the Football Club, and after attempts at mediation by an ANC crisis committee failed.
Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala
In November 1988, 21-year-old Lolo Sono, and his 19-year-old friend Siboniso Shabalala, disappeared in Soweto. Sono's father said he saw his son in a kombi with Madikizela-Mandela, and that his son had been badly beaten. Sono’s mother claimed that Madikizela-Mandela had labelled her son a spy, and had said she was "taking him away". At the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Sono's stepmother said, "I am pleading with Mrs Mandela today, in front of the whole world, that please, Mrs Mandela, give us our son back. Even if he is dead, let Mrs Mandela give us the remains of our son, so that we must bury him decently." Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.
Seipei and Asvat killings
On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was coach of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Sepei) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn, with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless). The four were beaten to get them to admit to having had sex with the minister. Negotiations that lasted 10 days, by senior ANC and community leaders to get the kidnapped boys released by Madikizela-Mandela failed. Seipei was accused of being an informer, and his body later found in a field with stab wounds to the throat on 6 January 1989.
In 1991, Mrs Mandela was acquitted of all but the kidnapping of Sepei. A key witness, Katiza Cebekhulu, who was going to testify that Madikizela-Mandela had killed Sepei, had been tortured and kidnapped to Zambia by her supporters prior to the trial, to prevent him testifying against her. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.
In 1992, she was accused of ordering the murder of Abu Baker Asvat, a family friend and prominent Soweto doctor, who had examined Seipei at Mandela's house, after Seipei had been abducted but before he had been killed. Mandela's role in the Asvat killing was later probed as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in 1997. Asvat's murderer testified that she paid the equivalent of $8,000 and supplied the firearm used in the killing, which took place on 27 January 1989. The hearings were later adjourned amid claims that witnesses were being intimidated on Madikizela-Mandela's orders.
In a 2017 documentary about the life and activism of Madikizela-Mandela, former Soweto police officer Henk Heslinga alleged that former safety minister Sydney Mufamadi had instructed him to re-open the investigation into the death of Moeketsi, as well as all other cases made against Madikizela-Mandela, for the purpose of charging Winnie with murder. According to Heslinga, Richardson admitted during an interview that Moeketsi discovered he was an informant, and that he killed the child to cover his tracks. However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false. The documentary had previously been described by in a review by Vanity Fair as "unabashedly one-sided" and "overwhelmingly defensive". Commentator Max du Preez, called the decision by television station eNCA to broadcast the documentary in the week prior to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral without context a "serious mistake", and he described it as making "outrageous claims", while former TRC commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza questioned the motives of the documentary maker.
In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Sepei murders to be probed. In October 2018 a new biography of Madikizela-Mandela concluded that she had been responsible for the murder of Asvat.
In April 2018, Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, told media that she did not believe that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was involved in her son’s murder. In a subsequent interview with The Independent in the UK, Joyce Seipei said that she had forgiven Madikizela-Mandela, and that during the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had told her, in the context of her son Stompie's murder: "...may God forgive me". After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.
TRC findings
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights." The TRC report also stated that the abduction to Zambia of the Sepei trial witness Katiza Cebekhulu, where he was detained without trial for almost 3 years by the Kenneth Kaunda government before moving to the UK, was done by the ANC and in the "interests" of Madikizela-Mandela. The TRC found allegations against Methodist minister Paul Verryn to be "unfounded and without any merit" and that "Madikizela-Mandela deliberately and maliciously slandered Verryn...in an attempt to divert attention away from herself and [her] associates...". The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana. She was found by the TRC to be responsible for the 1988 disappearance of Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala.
Transition to democracy: 1990–2003
During South Africa's transition to multi-racial democracy, she adopted a far less conciliatory attitude than her husband did towards white South Africans. She was seen on her husband's arm when he was released in February 1990, the first time the couple had been seen in public for nearly 30 years.
However, their 38-year marriage ended in April 1992 after rumours of unfaithfulness. Their divorce was finalised in March 1996. She then adopted the surname "Madikizela-Mandela". Also in 1992, she lost her position as the head of the ANC social welfare department, amid allegations of corruption.
Madikizela-Mandela actively campaigned for the ANC in South Africa's first non-racial elections. Appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in May 1994, she was dismissed 11 months later following allegations of corruption.
In 1995, multiple prominent members of the ANC Women's League, including Adelaide Tambo resigned from the National Executive Committee of that body because of disagreement with Madikizela-Mandela's leadership of the body, and amid a controversy about a large donation from Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto that was not handed over to the League by Madikizela-Mandela.
She remained extremely popular amongst many ANC supporters. In December 1993 and April 1997, she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, although she withdrew her candidacy for ANC Deputy President at the movement's Mafikeng conference in December 1997. Earlier in 1997, she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle, but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes. In a guarded response, she admitted "things went horribly wrong".
During the 1990s, she associated with Israeli organised crime figures operating in South Africa, who were involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.
In 2002, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty by a Parliamentary ethics committee of failing to disclose donations and financial interests. Madikizela Mandela was often absent from Parliament, sometimes for months at a time, and was ordered by Parliament to account for her absences in 2003.
Legal problems and withdrawal from South African politics: 2003–2007
In 2003, Madikizela-Mandela offered to act as a human shield prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also in 2003, she helped defuse a hostage situation at Wits University, where a student who was in arrears with fees took a staff member hostage at knifepoint.
Fraud and theft case
On 24 April 2003, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft, and her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty. The charges related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Shortly after the conviction, she resigned from all leadership positions in the ANC, including her parliamentary seat and the presidency of the ANC Women's League.
In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain". The judge overturned the conviction for theft, but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.
Return to politics
When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Madikizela-Mandela placed first with 2,845 votes.
Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country, and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots. She apologised to the victims of the riots and visited the Alexandra township. She offered her home as shelter for an immigrant family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She warned that the perpetrators of the violence could strike at the Gauteng train system.
Madikizela-Mandela secured fifth place on the ANC's electoral list for the 2009 general election, behind party president Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy President Baleka Mbete, and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. An article in The Observer suggested her position near the top of the list indicated that the party's leadership saw her as a valuable asset in the election with regard to solidifying support among the party's grassroots and the poor.
Madkizela-Mandela was largely sidelined by the ANC in the post-apartheid period. Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema. Madikizela-Mandela was a political patron of Malema, who was expelled from the ANC and later formed his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
2010 interview with Nadira Naipaul
In 2010, Madikizela-Mandela was interviewed by Nadira Naipaul. In the interview, she attacked her ex-husband, claiming that he had "let blacks down", that she was only "wheeled out to collect money", and that he is "nothing more than a foundation". She further attacked his decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk. Among other things, she reportedly claimed Mandela was no longer "accessible" to her daughters. She referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his capacity as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a "cretin".
The interview attracted media attention, and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela. On 14 March 2010, a statement was issued on Madikizela-Mandela's behalf claiming that the interview was a fabrication.
Death and funeral
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela died at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on 2 April 2018 at the age of 81. She suffered from diabetes and had recently undergone several major surgeries. She "had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year".
In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma, Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".
Madikizela-Mandela was granted a "Special Official Funeral" by the South African government. Her public funeral service was held at Orlando Stadium on 14 April 2018. Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme. At the public service, ANC and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa "acknowledged" that the ANC failed to stand by Madikizela-Mandela's side during her legal troubles. Julius Malema delivered an impassioned speech in which he criticised the United Democratic Front for distancing themselves from Madikizela-Mandela in the 1980s. Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995, because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal". Madikizela-Mandela's daughter Zenani attacked those who "vilified" her mother, calling them hypocrites. After the public service, her body was interred at a cemetery in Fourways in the north of Johannesburg during a private memorial service.
A number of ANC figures prepared to defend themselves against the allegations made at the funeral, however the ANC urged "restraint".
In popular culture
Mandela was portrayed by Alfre Woodard in the 1987 HBO TV movie, Mandela. Woodard earned both a CableACE Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance, as did costar Danny Glover, who portrayed Nelson Mandela.
Tina Lifford played her in the 1997 TV film Mandela and de Klerk. Sophie Okonedo portrayed her in the BBC drama Mrs Mandela, first broadcast on BBC Four on 25 January 2010.
Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011. Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. Though the performances of Hudson and Terrance Howard, who portrayed Nelson Mandela, earned praise from many critics, the film was a critical and commercial failure.
In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.
Mandela was again portrayed in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom by actress Naomie Harris (British actor Idris Elba played Nelson Mandela). On viewing the film, Madikizela-Mandela told Harris it was "the first time she felt her story had been captured on film". Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's."
Honours and awards
In 1985, Mandela won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award along with fellow activists Allan Boesak and Beyers Naudé for their human rights work in South Africa. She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
In January 2018, the University Council and University Senate of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, approved the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree to Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, in recognition of her fight against apartheid in South Africa.
See also
List of civil rights leaders
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, 2018 biography of Mandela by Sisonke Msimang
References
Further reading
External links
"Fall of Winnie Mandela Began Nearly 2 Years Ago; Erratic Behavior Preceded Recent Violence" , The Washington Post, 18 February 1989
"Winnie Mandela on bank fraud charges", Telegraph, 15 October 2001
Alec Russell, "Mrs Mandela defies accusers", Telegraph, 5 December 1997
"Winnie Mandela 'had hand in boy's murder'", Telegraph, 9 December 1997
"Special Investigation into the Mandela United Football Club", Kagablog, 9 January 2008
Emma Gilbey., The Lady: the life and times of Winnie Mandela, London: Vintage, 1994.
NEC statement on Mandela Football Club, 19 February 1989
"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Biography Summary"
Rachel Holmes, "Queer Comrades: Winnie Mandela and the Moffies", Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 161–180
Report on Winnie Mandela on Japan Today News
Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine her Crimes? by BBC News, 25 January 2010
1936 births
2018 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century South African politicians
21st-century South African politicians
People convicted of kidnapping
Anti-apartheid activists
South African activists
South African women activists
South African politicians convicted of fraud
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Winnie
Xhosa people
Members of the National Assembly of South Africa
African National Congress politicians
People who testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa
Members of the Order of Luthuli
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Deaths from diabetes
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates
Burials in South Africa | true | [
"Marie Breen Smyth (born 26 January 1953) is an author, teacher and researcher from Northern Ireland. She has published on topics such as the Northern Ireland conflict, particularly the human impact, trauma, victim politics, children and armed conflict, research ethics and methods, religion and conflict, and issues to do with political violence in Southern Africa, Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland.\n\nShe was previously known as Marie Smyth but adopted the surname of her husband, Alan Johnston Breen, after his death on 7 July 2005.\n\nCareer\nFrom February 2011 to August 2015 she was Chair in International Relations at the University of Surrey, England, UK.\n\nShe was previously Reader in International Politics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Contemporary Political Violence at Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK.\n\nBetween 2002 and 2003 she was Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC.\n\nShe left the University of Surrey on 1 August 2015 and moved to the United States.\n\nContemporary debates\nIn March 2005, Breen-Smyth, (then Smyth) gave evidence to the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Inquiry into Dealing with Northern Ireland's past. Her evidence was based on her work with victims, through the \"Cost of the Troubles Study\".\n\nIn 2006 Breen-Smyth with Richard Jackson and Jeroen Gunning co-authored a paper The Case for a Critical Terrorism Studies proposing that a new discipline was required to stimulate debate and widen the discourse within orthodox terrorism studies.\n\nOn 13 February 2007, The Guardian published an article 'The abuse of research' by Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning in which they argue that the sources of funding and the political agendas of think tanks should be taken into account when interpreting their findings, and may mean that their reports need to be treated with care. The article argues that the politicisation of research can lead to serious distortions in the understanding of policy issues.\n\nIn April 2008, Breen-Smyth was the subject of an attack by right wing journalist Melanie Phillips who based her attack on the assertions and documentation provided by an anonymous student who took one of Breen-Smyth's courses at Aberystwyth. Phillips wrote to the Vice Chancellor of Aberystwyth complaining that Breen Smyth was a 'subversive' and shouldn't be allowed to teach. However, Breen Smyth was supported by the university and many claiming to be her students.\n\nIn 2007 Breen-Smyth was one of those shortlisted for what was envisaged as a single post of Victims Commissioner for Northern Ireland, but she was not among the four Commissioners eventually appointed in January 2008. Breen-Smyth opposed the appointment of four commissioners instead of one, which required new legislation delayed by an unsuccessful judicial review brought by victims' representative Michelle Williamson. Breen-Smyth separately launched a legal challenge to the appointments in the employment tribunals, claiming discrimination on the grounds of religious belief, political opinion and sex, but this was rejected in February 2011.\n\nVoluntary work\n\nBreen-Smyth is currently involved in \"Healing Through Remembering,\" a project established to consider how Northern Ireland might deal with its past, which involves people from all sides of the conflict. Her latest book Truth Recovery and Justice After Conflict: Managing Violent Pasts. (Abingdon: Routledge) deals with the subject of truth recovery.\n\nIn the 1980s, Breen-Smyth co-founded \"Derry Well Woman\", a free health and support service for women based in the North West of Ireland.\n\nPublications\nWith Richard Jackson (University of Otago), Jeroen Gunning (Durham University), Piers Robinson (Manchester University) and George Kassimeris (Wolverhampton University) Breen Smyth currently edits the Routledge journal Critical Studies on Terrorism. This team, including Breen Smyth, have argued for the establishment of a new critical turn in terrorism studies, and the development of critical terrorism studies.\n\nSelected books\n\n (2007) Truth and justice after violent conflict: managing violent pasts. Abingdon: Routledge.\n (2002) Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement: Victims, Grievance and Blame. London: Pluto (with Mike Morrissey) (247pp)\n (2000). Personal Accounts of Northern Ireland’s Troubles: Public Chaos, Private Loss. London: Pluto, (with Marie-Therese Fay) (150pp)\n (1999) Northern Ireland’s Troubles: The Human Costs. London: Pluto. (with Marie-Therese Fay and Mike Morrissey) 0-7453137-4-4 (229pp)\n (1998) Half the Battle: Understanding the Impact of the Troubles on Children and Young People. Derry Londonderry, INCORE / the United Nations University and the University of Ulster. . 174pp.\n (1996) Hemmed in and Hacking it: Life in Two Enclaves. Derry: Guildhall Press.\n\nSelected edited works\n (2005) Researching Conflict in Africa: Insights and Experiences. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. (with Gillian Robinson, Eghosa Osage, Albrecht, Schnabel and Lis Porter) (eds)\n (2004) Researchers and their 'subjects:’ ethics, power, knowledge and consent. Bristol: Policy Press. (ed with Emma Williamson) (227pp)\n (2001) Researching Violently Divide Societies: Ethical and Methodological Issues. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. (with Gillian Robinson) (eds) (227pp)\n (2000) Working With Children and Young People in Violently Divided Societies: Papers from South Africa and Northern Ireland. Derry Londonderry, INCORE / the United Nations University and the University of Ulster. (with Kirsten Thomson) (eds) (246pp)\n\nPublic exhibitions\n (1998) Do You Know What’s Happened? Personal Accounts and Images of the Troubles. (Output of the Cost of the Troubles Study) Opened November, 1998 by Secretary of State for NI, Dr Marjorie Mowlam, The Great Hall, Belfast City Hall; toured venues, including House of Commons, Westminster, Glasgow, Dublin.\n (1998) Do You See What I See? Young People’s Experience of the Troubles in their own words and photographs. (Output of research on children and political violence) Opened May, 1998, by Assistant Secretary of State for NI, Adam Ingram in University of Ulster School of Art and Design, York Street, touring various venues in Northern Ireland, England and the Republic of Ireland.\n (1996) Hemmed in and Hacking It: Words and Images from Two Enclave Areas; (Output of the Templegrove Action Research Project on sectarian division in Derry/Londonderry) opened in Derry Central Library. Toured venues in the North West: archived in Derry Central Library.\n\nFilm and video\n (2000) And Then There Was Silence... feature documentary/training video with accompanying training notes. 90 minutes. The Cost of the Troubles Study/Northern Visions.\n (1999) Do You See What I See? Young People’s Experience of the Troubles. The Cost of the Troubles Study /Ulster Television/ Save the Children.\n\nReferences\n\n1953 births\nLiving people\nAcademics of Aberystwyth University",
"William Bulkeley (4 November 1691 – 28 October 1760) was a minor Welsh landowner, remembered chiefly as a diarist. He was born in Brynddu in the parish of Llanfechell, Anglesey, the son of William Bulkeley of Brynddu and of Lettice, daughter of Captain Henry Jones of Llangoed. He was sheriff of Anglesey in 1715. \n\nFor many years he kept a meticulous diary. It was celebrated in 2014 with a dramatic performance at Brynddu house, still owned by one of his descendants. \n\nTwo volumes survive, the first from 30 March 1734 to 8 June 1743, the second 1 August 1747 to 28 September 1760. Every day he recorded his impression of the weather, but he also gives many details of estate management, local politics and religious upheaval, his patronage of harpists, cattle-dealing in the local fairs, his legal duties as justice of the peace, and his visit to Dublin. He seldom alludes to his business dealings, but in 1736 he refers to a debt and to money paid in London:\n\nFamily troubles\nHe also refers to the marital troubles of his daughter Mary, who in 1738 married Fortunatus Wright, merchant and privateer of Liverpool. \n\n \n\nMary's troubles did not end with Fortunatus's death in 1756:\n\nReferences\n\n1691 births\n1760 deaths\nPeople from Anglesey\nHigh Sheriffs of Anglesey"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage"
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | What was the second marriage? | 1 | What was the second marriage of Wallis Simpson? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | true | [
"Hümaşah Sultan was a daughter of Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire.\n\nFirst marriage\nShe was born earliest in 1466. Her mother is unknown. \nShe was married in 1482 to Bali Pasha, the governor of Antalya. Bali Pasha died in 1495. The mosque and turbe he was building in Istanbul were still unfinished, Hümaşah Sultan herself completed the construction in 1504.\n\nSecond marriage\nShe had her next marriage in 1501 with Malkoçoglu Yahya Pasha, which lasted until his death in 1506/07. She bore him three sons: Malkoçoglu Bali Bey (died 1555), Malkoçoglu Mehmed Bey (died 1548) and Malkoçoglu Ahmed Bey (died 1543).\n\nDeath\nFrom many sources we surely know she died after 1504. Although some sources mistakenly suggest that Sultanzade Sultan, the daughter of Hüsnüşah Hatun, was married to Yahya Pasha, what we also know is that the daughter of Bayezid II, who was married to him, died in 1520.\nWhen Hümaşah died, she was buried somewhere near Muradiye Complex in Bursa.\n\nReferences\n\nOttoman Empire",
"What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution is a 1999 book by the journalist E. J. Graff in which the author advocates the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. It drew both supportive and critical commentary.\n\nBackground and publication history\n\nE. J. Graff is a journalist. She co-wrote the 2005 book Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men—and What to Do About It with the businesswoman and politician Evelyn Murphy.\n\nWhat Is Marriage For? was first published in 1999 by Beacon Press. In 2004 it was reissued in paperback with a foreword by the journalist Richard Goldstein.\n\nReception\n\nWhat Is Marriage For? received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly, Joseph Glenmullen in The Boston Globe, Anne Kingston in The Globe and Mail, and Marilyn Murray Willison in The Washington Post Book World; a mixed review from the legal scholar Nancy Polikoff in The Women's Review of Books; and a negative review from Christopher Carrington in Qualitative Sociology. It was also reviewed by the anthropologist Ellen Lewin in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Stephen Duncombe in Newsday, Jose Gabilondo in the Washington Blade, and Paul Kafka in the San Francisco Chronicle.\n\nA reviewer for Publishers Weekly described the book as \"a lively feminist treatise on why same-sex marriage should be legalized in the United States\" and commended Graff's presentation of the history of marriage in the western world. The reviewer found the book somewhat repetitive, and suggested that Graff had underestimated the \"tenacity\" of opposing views. Glenmullen described the prose as \"clear, well-organized, and easy to read\". He credited Graff with providing \"a thought-provoking review of the vicissitudes of this ancient institution\". Kingston praised the book as \"a font of fascinating information\". She wrote that Graff had made a compelling case for same-sex marriage. Willison found the book entertaining and informative, writing that Graff's \"breezy tone\" and first-person commentary enlivened her \"encyclopedic collection of facts, observations and insights\".\n\nPolikoff called What Is Marriage For? an important book, but disagreed with Graff's premise that the institution of marriage was worth upholding. She recommended the work of the legal theorist Martha Fineman, who advocated the abolition of marriage. Carrington reviewed What Is Marriage For? alongside Karla Hackstaff's Marriage in a Culture of Divorce. He wrote that, while Graff's book was entertaining and wide-reaching, he found it \"flippant, careless, and patently unfair\". He stated that Graff ought to have critiqued conventional monogamous marriage, rather than set it as the ideal for gay people.\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\nInterview with UU World\n\n1999 non-fiction books\n1990s LGBT literature\nAmerican non-fiction books\nBooks about marriage\nBooks about same-sex marriage\nBooks by E. J. Graff\nEnglish-language books\nLGBT literature in the United States"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards."
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | How did she meet him? | 2 | How did Wallis Simpson meet Ernest Aldrich Simpson? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | false | [
"\"Song of the Younger World\" is the first segment of the thirty-fifth episode (the twentieth episode of the second season (1986–87) of the television series The Twilight Zone. This segment follows a forbidden love between two youths.\n\nPlot\nA young man named Tanner Smith, who is in a home for wayward boys, seeks out the superintendent's daughter Amy. Although it is forbidden, they begin to meet at night and talk about their dreams and aspirations. She brings him books from the library after he tells her about his fascinations with wolves and how enlightened they are. He gives her a pendant he stole when he was a pickpocket. Amy claims to not care about his past as she only knows that she loves him.\n\nOne night in the barn where they meet, they are caught by her father rolling in the hay. Tanner is beaten by her father. Her father threatens that if they meet ever again, he will kill Tanner. Amy is comforted by an old ragged man named Hoakie. Hoakie tends to Tanner's wounds and warns him to avoid Amy. He says that she's in the library and he goes to her. They talk about how to escape together. Amy has found a book that explains how to release two souls so they can come together in a \"better world\".\n\nAmy attempts this \"escape\", but her father surprises her, takes the book from her, and burns it. Tanner hears howling from outside. He thinks it is Amy, escapes his room and meets her outside. She talks cryptically about knowing the right way to escape. They separate but she tells him not to worry.\n\nAmy tells Hoakie to tell Tanner that she will meet him but will appear dead. However, she escapes to the other world without waiting for Tanner to get the message. Tanner finds Amy's body and thinks she committed suicide. Blaming her father, he assaults him, but he fights back and imprisons Tanner. Hoakie finds Tanner and tries to explain what Amy was doing and what he must do to join her. Amy's father decides to kill Tanner. He finds Hoakie in the prison and murders him. Tanner does as he is told, and Amy's father witnesses him leave the world. The scene fades to a forest, where two white wolves run alongside each other, one of which is wearing Amy's pendant.\n\nExternal links\n \n\nThe Twilight Zone (1985 TV series season 2) episodes\n1987 American television episodes\nFiction set in 1916\nTelevision episodes about parallel universes\n\nfr:L'Orée du monde",
"Sarah Kramer is a Canadian vegan cookbook author. She is the best-selling author of How It All Vegan, The Garden of Vegan, La Dolce Vegan! and Vegan A Go-Go!. In 2012, she released Go Vegan! w/Sarah Kramer, one of the world's first vegan cookbook iPhone/iPad apps. \nKramer has written for publications such as Herbivore Magazine, Veg News and Shared Vision. She runs a popular vegan website/blog at govegan.net. She had a small vegan boutique called Sarah's Place that opened in 2011 and closed 2 years later after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Sarah did treatment in 2013 and now works full time at the business Tattoo Zoo that she co-owns with her wife, Geri Kramer in Victoria, BC. Sarah and Geri have a podcast called Meet The Kramers in which they discuss their 25-year marriage in relation to Geri's coming out as a trans woman in 2019.\n\nBooks\n How It All Vegan (with Tanya Barnard) (1999) \n The Garden Of Vegan (with Tanya Barnard) (2003) \n La Dolce Vegan (2005) \n Vegan A Go-Go! (2008) \n How It All Vegan: 10th Anniversary Edition (2009)\n\nPodcast \n\n Meet The Kramers podcast\n\nSee also\n Vegan\n List of vegans\n\nReferences\n\nInterviews and articles\n Article in Shared Vision\n Podcast Interview on Vegan Freak Radio\n Interview with The Cookbook Store\n Interview with Abebooks.com\n\nExternal links\n Meet The Kramers podcast\n Tattoo Zoo\n Sarah's Blog\n GoVegan.net, Sarah's website\n Arsenal Pulp Press, Sarah's publisher\n\nChefs of vegan cuisine\nCanadian women chefs\nCanadian food writers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nWriters from Regina, Saskatchewan\nCanadian cookbook writers\nVegan cookbook writers"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.",
"How did she meet him?",
"He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London."
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | Did the second marriage last? | 3 | Did the second marriage between Wallis Simpson and Ernest Aldrich Simpson last? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | false | [
"John VI, Duke of Mecklenburg (1439–1474) was a Duke of Mecklenburg.\n\nLife \nJohn was the second son of Henry IV, Duke of Mecklenburg, and his wife Dorothea, daughter of Elector Frederick I of Brandenburg.\n\nHis earliest documented official act (jointly with the father) was in 1451. In 1464 he ruled an apanage of several districts jointly with his brother Albert VI, but did not participate actively in administering them.\n\nIn 1472, John VI was engaged to Sophie, the daughter of Duke Eric II of Pomerania. The marriage was set to be celebrated in 1474. However, John VI died before the marriage took place. The exact date of his death is unknown; he is last mentioned in a document dated 20 May 1474.\n\nHis last illness was contracted on a journey to Franconia to visit his uncle Elector Albrecht III Achilles of Brandenburg. In Kulmbach, he was infected with the plague and died. He was probably buried in Poor Clares monastery in Hof.\n\nExternal links \n Genealogical table of the House of Mecklenburg\n\nHouse of Mecklenburg\nDukes of Mecklenburg\n1439 births\n1474 deaths\n15th-century German people",
"Sir Sri Rama Varma XV (1852–1932), known as the Rajarshi of Cochin and as Abdicated Highness, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Cochin from 1895 to 1914.\n\nRama Varma abdicated the throne in 1914. He died in January 1932 at his summer residence in Thrissur. He was cremated with full state honours in the premises of his home. Both his palace and resting place are now situated in the premises of Sree Kerala Varma College, made by and named after Kerala Varma VII. His name was given to several educational institutions in the Cochin state like the one in Vadavucode named Rajarshi Memorial Higher Secondary school Vadavucode and Rajarshi Memorial Higher Secondary school, Alloor.\n\nPersonal life \nRama Varma XV had married twice, his first marriage did not last for long due to the death of his wife. His second wife was Ittyanath Madathil Parukutty a member of the Ittyanath Family from Villadam, Thrissur. Parukutty was his Nethyaramma there after. He also happens to be the step father of Ittyanath Madathil Madhavi (wife of Rama Varma Parikshith Thampuran).\n\nParukutty was a widow herself before her marriage to Rama Varma XV and had a girl child from that marriage. As it's a custom then to leave children from earlier marriage at one's ancestral home Parukutty did the same after her marriage to Rama Varma XV. Upon her arrival at the Palace in Tripunithura, Rama Varma XV enquired about the child. When he heard about the child from Parukutty, he ordered that the child should be brought to the Palace at once. Later this child was destined to become a Nethyaramma herself after her marriage to Rama Varma Parikshith Thampuran.\n\nReferences \n\n \n\n1932 deaths\n1852 births\nIndian knights\n19th-century Indian monarchs\nKnights Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India\nKnights Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire\nRulers of Cochin\nMonarchs who abdicated\n20th-century Indian monarchs\nIndian Sanskrit scholars\n19th-century Indian educational theorists\n20th-century Indian educational theorists\nScholars from Kerala"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.",
"How did she meet him?",
"He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.",
"Did the second marriage last?",
"I don't know."
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | When did she get divorced? | 4 | When did Wallis Simpson get divorced? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | false | [
"Must We Get Divorced? may refer to:\n\n Must We Get Divorced? (1933 film), a German comedy film\n Must We Get Divorced? (1953 film), a West German comedy film",
"Sascha Rothchild (born November 15, 1976) is an American writer.\n\nLife\nRothchild grew up in Miami Beach, Florida and is one of three siblings. Her father, John Rothchild, is a well-known non-fiction writer and her mother, Susan Rothchild, is the daughter of 21 Club founder Charlie Berns.\n\nShe attended Boston College and graduated with honors in 1998. She then moved to Los Angeles and began her writing career. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two rescued boxer dogs.\n\nCareer\nRothchild was featured reading from her teen diary at the stage show, Mortified, on This American Life, My Experimental Phase episode. Her segment \"Miami Vices\" is on the This American Life best of CD, Hope and Fear. Rothchild was also featured on This American Life on Showtime, episode titled Growth Spurt.\n\nRothchild writes comedy feature films, scripted television, such as The Carrie Diaries, The Bold Type, Huge In France, GLOW and THE BABY SITTERS CLUB. She was also a regular blogger about relationships for Psychology Today Magazine and Huffington Post. Her LA Weekly article \"How To Get Divorced By 30\" about her failed starter marriage, spawned a memoir published by Penguin. Rothchild was a Co Executive Producer and writer for seasons 1, 2 and 3 on the hit Netflix series GLOW. She was nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe, Writer's Guild Award, Producer's Guild Award for her work on GLOW.\n\nHer debut novel, Blood Sugar, will be published by Putnam in the spring of 2022.\n\nWorks\n How To Get Divorced By 30, Penguin, January 2010.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \"INTERVIEW WITH SASCHA ROTHCHILD: HOW TO GET DIVORCED BY 30: MY MISGUIDED ATTEMPT AT A STARTER MARRIAGE\", Jen Schwartz, Divorce Candy FEB 04, 2010\n\"Q&A: Sascha Rothchild, author of How to Get Divorced by 30\", Miami Herald, Connie Ogle, January 27, 2010\nQ&A with Sascha Rothchild at the Powerhouse Arena, NY.\n Sascha Rothchild website\n This American Life (Radio)\n This American Life (book)\n This American Life (TV)\n Psychology Today Magazine\n The Penguin Group\n Penguin blog\n \"Sascha Rothchild Enters the Ninja\", Mortified, January 2, 2008\n\nLiving people\n1976 births\nWriters from Miami\n21st-century American women writers\nScreenwriters from Florida\n21st-century American screenwriters"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.",
"How did she meet him?",
"He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.",
"Did the second marriage last?",
"I don't know.",
"When did she get divorced?",
"I don't know."
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | Can you give me any interesting information? | 5 | Can you give me any interesting information about Wallis Simpson and Ernest Aldrich Simpson? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | true | [
"La Prière du Para (The Paratrooper's Prayer) is a French poem found in the possession of the presumed author, Aspirant (Brevet-Lieutenant) André Zirnheld, upon his death in Libya on July 27, 1942. The Paratrooper's Prayer has been adopted by all French Metropolitan and Marine Infantry Paratrooper Units and Regiments except for the Portuguese Paratroopers.\nThe Prayer appears before A. J. Quinnell's novel Man on Fire, the main protagonist of which is an ex-paratrooper in the Legion. This prayer also appears in Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book, On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre, and Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead by Jim Mattis.\n\nThe Prayer of the Paratrooper\n(Translation by Robert Petersen)\nI'm asking You God, to give me what You have left.\nGive me those things which others never ask of You.\nI don't ask You for rest, or tranquility.\nNot that of the spirit, the body, or the mind.\nI don't ask You for wealth, or success, or even health.\nAll those things are asked of You so much Lord,\nthat you can't have any left to give.\nGive me instead Lord what You have left.\nGive me what others don't want.\nI want uncertainty and doubt.\nI want torment and battle.\nAnd I ask that You give them to me now and forever Lord,\nso I can be sure to always have them,\nbecause I won't always have the strength to ask again.\nBut give me also the courage, the energy,\nand the spirit to face them.\nI ask You these things Lord,\nbecause I can't ask them of myself(*).\n\n(*) The French text says rather:\nFor only You can grant\nWhat can come only from myself.\n\nReferences\nAnthony W. Pahl, International War Veterans' Poetry Archive\n\nChristian prayer\n\n1942 documents",
"Coast to Coast is the fourth US studio album by the English rock band the Dave Clark Five. It is notable for containing two hit singles \"Any Way You Want It\" and \"Everybody Knows (I Still Love You)\". Other songs from this album were used in the Dave Clark Five film Having a Wild Weekend such as \"I Can't Stand It\" and \"When\". In Canada, it was released as Across Canada with the Dave Clark Five on Capitol Records.\n\nReception\n\nIn his retrospective review for Allmusic, critic Bruce Eder wrote, \"Coast To Coast opens strong and it gets better, blooming into an amazingly diverse yet consistently powerful record made up entirely of group originals... Had there been an actual rock press in 1964, or if the Dave Clark Five been taken more seriously sooner, Coast To Coast would probably be regarded today as something close to an essential British Invasion record...\"\n\nCash Box said of the single \"Everybody Knows (I Still Love You)\" that it has \"an interesting cool quality and a good dance rhythm\" and it \"can't miss.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nSide one\n\"Any Way You Want It\" (Ron Ryan) – 2:26\n\"Give Me Love\" (Also titled as \"I Can't Stop Loving You\") (Dave Clark, Denny Payton) – 1:55\n\"I Can't Stand It\" (Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson) – 1:31\n\"I'm Left Without You\" (Also titled as \"What Is There To Say\") (Dave Clark, Denny Payton) – 1:45\n\"Everybody Knows (I Still Love You)\" (Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson) – 1:39\n\"Crying Over You\" (Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson) – 2:04\n\nSide two\n\"Say You Want Me\" (Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson) – 1:42\n\"When\" (Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson) – 2:23\n\"Don't You Know\" (Dave Clark, Denny Payton) – 1:33\n\"To Me\" (Dave Clark, Denny Payton) – 1:39\n\"It's Not True\" (Dave Clark, Mike Smith) – 1:59\n\nPersonnel\n\nDave Clark Five\nDave Clark - drums, backing vocals\nMike Smith - keyboards, lead vocals\nLenny Davidson - guitars, backing and harmony vocals\nRick Huxley - bass guitar, backing vocals\nDenis Payton - saxophone, backing vocals\n\nReferences\n\nThe Dave Clark Five albums\n1965 albums\nEpic Records albums"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.",
"How did she meet him?",
"He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.",
"Did the second marriage last?",
"I don't know.",
"When did she get divorced?",
"I don't know.",
"Can you give me any interesting information?",
"The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair."
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | Did they stay in Mayfair? | 6 | Did Wallis Simpson and Ernest Aldrich Simpson stay in Mayfair? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
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Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
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Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
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Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | true | [
"Mayfair is an English brand of cigarette, currently owned and manufactured by Gallaher Group, a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco.\n\nHistory\nMayfair was launched in 1992 with the slogan \"A good smoke at a fair price\". The brand is Gallaher Group's leading value cigarette brand. Mayfair is one of the least expensive cigarette brands in the U.K., despite its name presumably being chosen to evoke the glamour of Mayfair, the famous London district. \n\nBy 2007 Mayfair had become the second most popular cigarette brand in the U.K., with total sales of £663 million.\n\nIn 2012, the brand's 20th anniversary, JTI introduced a limited edition pack, from 1 August, for two months only, with packs feature a modern new background and a 3-D crest, as well as the introduction of a \"20 Years of Quality\" message on-pack and a coloured inner foil.\n\nMarkets\nMayfair is mainly sold in the United Kingdom and Ireland, but also is, or was, , Austria, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Poland, Greece, Australia and Canada.\n\nProducts\nThe brand is available in seven versions; Mayfair White King Size, Mayfair Original Blue King Size and Superkings, Mayfair Sky Blue King Size and Superkings. Mayfair also did a Menthol cigarette called Mayfair Green, sold in King Size and Superkings, until they got discontinued in May 2020 due to the EU menthol ban. After the menthol ban, Mayfair introduced a new cigarette, Mayfair New Green, a non-menthol alternative.\n\nSee also\n Tobacco smoking\n\nReferences\n \n\nGallaher Group brands\nJapan Tobacco brands\nBritish brands",
"Mayfair is a district in the City of Westminster in London, England.\n\nMayfair may also refer to:\n\nGeography\n\nCanada\n Mayfair, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood\n Mayfair, Saskatchewan, a hamlet\n Mayfair, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a neighbourhood\n Mayfair, a community in the township of Southwest Middlesex, Ontario\n\nUnited States\n Mayfair, Fresno County, California, a census-designated place\n Mayfair, Kern County, California, an unincorporated community\n Mayfair, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a neighborhood\n Mayfair, Washington, D.C., a neighborhood\n Mayfair, a shopping area in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida\n Mayfair, a neighborhood in Johns Creek, Georgia\n Mayfair, a neighborhood within the larger community area of Albany Park, Chicago, Illinois\n Mayfair (Metra), a commuter railroad station in Chicago, Illinois\n\nElsewhere\n Mayfair, Johannesburg, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa\n Mayfair, a suburb of Hastings, New Zealand\n\nPeople\n Billy Mayfair (born 1966), American professional golfer\n Mitzi Mayfair (1914–1976), American dancer and actress born Emylyn Pique\n\nFictional characters\n Katherine Mayfair, on the television series Desperate Housewives\n Adam Mayfair, Katherine's second husband\n Dylan Mayfair, Katherine's daughter\n Monk Mayfair, one of Doc Savage's five assistants\n A family of witches, in the novel series Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice\n\nArts and entertainment\n Mayfair (festival), an annual arts and music festival in Allentown, Pennsylvania\n Mayfair (magazine), a British soft pornographic magazine\n \"Mayfair\", a song by Nick Drake from Time of No Reply\n Mayfair Pictures, an American film studio of the 1930s\n Mayfair (film), a 2018 South African action drama\n\nBrands and enterprises\n Mayfair (cigarette), a brand of cigarettes produced by the Gallaher Group\n Dodge Mayfair, an automobile built for the Canadian market from 1953 to 1959\n Packard Mayfair, an automobile manufactured up to 1954\n Mayfair Bank, a commercial bank in Kenya\n Mayfair Club, a defunct underground poker club in New York City\n Mayfair Games, a publisher of board and roleplaying games\n The May Fair Hotel, London\n Mayfair Hotel (St. Louis, Missouri)\n Mayfair Markets, U.S. supermarkets that were sold off or absorbed into the Gelson's chain\n Mayfair Mall, a shopping mall in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin\n Mayfair Shopping Centre, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada\n Mayfair Studios, a recording studio in London\n Mayfair Tankers, a merchant shipping company\n\nVenues and theaters\n Mayfair Ballroom, a former venue in Newcastle upon Tyne\n Mayfair Music Hall, Santa Monica, California, a vaudeville theater demolished in 2010\n Mayfair Theatre, Baltimore, United States\n Mayfair Theatre, Dunedin, New Zealand\n Mayfair Theatre, Ottawa, Canada, a movie theatre\n\nAmerican historic structures\n Mayfair (Jenkinsville, South Carolina), a historic home\n Mayfair Hotel (Searcy, Arkansas), converted into an apartment house\n Mayfair House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an apartment building\n Mayfair Mansions Apartments, Washington, D.C.\n Mayfair Pumping Station, Chicago\n\nSchools\n Truman College, formerly Mayfair College, Chicago\n Mayfair High School a middle/high school in Lakewood, California\n\nSports\n Mayfair Open, an LPGA golf tournament held only in 1959\n Mayfair Sporting Club, London, an organiser of boxing dinner events\n\nOther uses\n Mayfair salad dressing"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.",
"How did she meet him?",
"He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.",
"Did the second marriage last?",
"I don't know.",
"When did she get divorced?",
"I don't know.",
"Can you give me any interesting information?",
"The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair.",
"Did they stay in Mayfair?",
"In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother,"
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | What happened to her sick mother? | 7 | What happened to Wallis Simpson's sick mother? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | false | [
"SMS is a 2008 Malayalam-language Indian film directed by Surjulan, starring Bala, Navya Nair and Mukesh. It is a campus investigation film.\n\nPlot \nIndhu is a first year student who gets ragged by Kichan and his gang. But with her smartness, she manages to ourshine her seniors. Slowly, Kichan and Indhu falls in love. One day Indhu confronts him and accuses him for cheating on her. When Kichan tries to find out why, he sees a flirty SMS sent from his mobile to a girl's number. He fights with his friend who sent the message from the mobile. Kichan tries to tell Indhu what actually happened, but she is too angry to listen. \n\nOne day, Indhu calls him tells him that she doesn't deserve to be in his life or in this world. Before Kichan could do anything to console her, she jumps off from the college building and dies.\n\nAs the police starts investigating her death, Kichan becomes their prime suspect as he was the last person she talked to and they were fighting for a few days. \nWhile Kichan himself tries to recover from Indhu's death, he finds himself tangled up in the investigation. Soon, a girl named Kalyani confronts him and reveals that she was the girl who received the SMS from his number and her father died after a marriage alliance got rejected because of the SMS. Kichan explains to her that he wasn't the one who sent it. Kalyani eventually believes him.\n\nKichan and the investigation officer, DYSP Robert Mathew, together catch the culprit - Raj Mohan, Indhu's and Kichan's college senior. He had a very good name in the college campus but was actually the one who called Indhu to his house convincing her that Kichan would arrive there to talk about their fight. He drugs Indhu and rapes her. When she wakes up realising what happened, he tells her that he wasn't home last night and Kichan was the one who raped her. She believes this and goes to college to confront Kichan but her friend tells her that Kichan was with her in the hospital as her mother fell sick last night.\n\nIndhu realised the truth, called Kichan to apologize and committed suicide. \n\nAs Kichan find out what happened, he fights Raj Mohan with the police officer's help. When he was about to kill him,Kichan's mother comes and asks him to leave him to the law for her sake. Kichan feels the presence of Indhu near him as the film ends.\n\nCast\n Mukesh as DYSP Robert Mathew\n Bala as Kichan\n Navya Nair as Indhumathy (Indu)\n Kottayam Nazeer as Chacko\n Jagathy Sreekumar as Swami\n Anoop Chandhran as Kichan's friend\n Madhu Warrier\n Kalyani as Kalyani\n Augustine as Viswambaran \n Salim Kumar as Sundaran\n Althara\n Ambika Mohan as Indhumathy's mother\n Kulappulli Leela as Bhargavy Amma (Mental Patient)\n\nReferences\n\n http://entertainment.oneindia.in/malayalam/news/2007/surjulan-sms-020707.html\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2008 films\n2000s Malayalam-language films\nIndian films\nFilms scored by Ilaiyaraaja",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Wallis Simpson",
"Second marriage",
"What was the second marriage?",
"By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.",
"How did she meet him?",
"He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.",
"Did the second marriage last?",
"I don't know.",
"When did she get divorced?",
"I don't know.",
"Can you give me any interesting information?",
"The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair.",
"Did they stay in Mayfair?",
"In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother,",
"What happened to her sick mother?",
"Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929."
] | C_1844d31f7cf84d78a6d2d436c1fcb33d_0 | Where else did they go? | 8 | Besides United States, where else did Wallis Simpson and Ernest Aldrich Simpson go? | Wallis Simpson | By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff. CANNOTANSWER | Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants. | Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), known as Wallis Simpson, was an American socialite and wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King-Emperor Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After abdicating, the former king was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.
Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore," who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.
According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (November 20, 1895), her parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896. For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did." Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a U.S. Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile. The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers. Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she only managed to master one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The Prince was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act". Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her. According to Wallis, it was during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934 that she fell in love with Edward. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother; his father was outraged, primarily on account of her marital history, as divorced people were generally excluded from court. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Claims of an affair were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Abdication crisis
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis. It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that the new king-emperor meant to marry her. The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and his brother the Duke of York. The British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely reported their relationship. After the death of George V, before her divorce from her second husband, Wallis reportedly said, "Soon I shall be Queen of England".
The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. At the time of the proposed marriage (and until 2002), the Church of England disapproved of, and would not perform, the remarriage of divorced people if their former spouse was still alive. Constitutionally, the King was required to be in communion with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage conflicted with the Church's teachings. Additionally, at the time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legitimate ground for divorce. Since she had divorced her first husband on grounds of "mutual incompatibility," there was a possibility that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered bigamous if her first divorce had been challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believed that a twice-divorced woman was politically, socially, and morally unsuitable as a prospective consort. She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition" who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that he had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the decree nisi was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted with the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and the Union of South Africa. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. She decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, and was driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the media at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, whom she later thanked effusively in her ghost-written memoirs. On her instructions, according to Andrew Morton on the basis of an interview with Rogers's stepdaughter-in-law 80 years later, the ghost-writer made no mention of her confession that Herman Rogers was actually the love of her life. At her hideaway, Wallis was pressured by Lord Brownlow, the King's lord-in-waiting, to renounce the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King. However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.
The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalized Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left Britain for Austria, where he stayed at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, resuming her maiden name. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward married one month later on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé, lent to them by French millionaire Charles Bedaux. The date would have been King George V's 72nd birthday; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for then as a deliberate slight. No member of Edward's family attended. Wallis wore a "Wallis blue" Mainbocher wedding dress. Edward presented her with an engagement ring that consisted of an emerald mount in yellow gold set with diamonds, and the sentence "We are ours now" was engraved on it. While the Church of England refused to sanction the wedding, Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington, offered to perform the service, an offer that was accepted by the couple. Guests included Randolph Churchill, Baron Eugène Daniel von Rothschild, and the best man, Major Fruity Metcalfe. The marriage produced no children. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI prior to the marriage. However, letters patent, passed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments, prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's firm view that the Duchess should not be given a royal title was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). At first, the British royal family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, remained bitter towards her for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in his early death) and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. These claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends, such as the Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with." Queen Elizabeth was said to have referred to Simpson as "that woman", while the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as "Mrs. Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family. Within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have resulted from jealousy. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen". The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke. U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London. There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.
Second World War
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased". The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July. They stayed in Cascais, at Casa de Santa Maria, the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor. Wallis performed her role as the governor's consort competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile. She was heavily criticized in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout. She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in Jim Crow Baltimore. Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial. The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen. The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Later life
In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumors that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of an insurance fraud—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, career criminal Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.
In 1952 they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement in the Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement. They travelled frequently between Europe and America aboard ocean liners. They bought a second house in the country, Moulin de la Tuilerie or "The Mill" in Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of their neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism; as the Duke wrote in the New York Daily News of December 13, 1966: "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."
In 1965, the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery for a detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visited them. The Duke's sister, the Princess Royal, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended her memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Wallis and Edward spoke to Kenneth Harris for an extensive BBC television interview in 1970. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.
Widowhood
Upon the Duke's death from throat cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to the United Kingdom to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. The Duchess became increasingly frail and eventually succumbed to dementia, living the final years of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. She suffered several falls and broke her hip twice.
After Edward's death, the Duchess's French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, assumed power of attorney. Blum sold items belonging to the Duchess to her own friends at lower than market value and was accused of exploiting her client in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until 1995, after Blum's death. Later, royal biographer Hugo Vickers called Blum a "Satanic figure ... wearing the mantle of good intention to disguise her inner malevolence".
In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she was bedridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on April 24, 1986, at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, aged 89. Her funeral was held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law – the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and other members of the royal family. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial.
She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Prior to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the Duchess's father was interred.
In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI style furniture, some porcelain, and paintings were made over to the French state. The British royal family received no major bequests. Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the royal family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown little interest in charity during her life.
In a Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate. Blum later claimed that Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to purchase the jewels for a "rock bottom price". Al-Fayed bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. An auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for later that year in New York. Delayed by his son's death in the car crash that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, the sale raised more than £14 million for charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis was plagued by rumors of other lovers. The gay American Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with her in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumor-mongering. Wallis's memoirs The Heart Has Its Reasons were published in 1956, and biographer Charles Higham said that "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift". He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".
Fictional depictions of the Duchess include the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, which portrays her as a manipulative conspirator, and Rose Tremain's short story "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006), which depicts her more sympathetically in her final years of ill health. Hearsay and conjecture have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, not helped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favorite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her." The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."
Titles and styles
June 19, 1896 – November 8, 1916: Miss Bessie Wallis Warfield
November 8, 1916 – July 21, 1928: Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
July 21, 1928 – May 7, 1937: Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson
May 7, 1937 – June 3, 1937: Mrs. Wallis Warfield
Wallis resumed her maiden surname by deed poll on May 7, 1937, but continued to use the title "Mrs".
June 3, 1937 – April 24, 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor was unofficially styled Her Royal Highness within her own household.
Notes and references
Bibliography
Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved 2 May 2010 (subscription required)
Further reading
External links
The Duchess of Windsor at 212 East Biddle Street – Explore Baltimore Heritage
1896 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American women
American emigrants to France
American Episcopalians
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women philanthropists
American socialites
Windsor
Burials at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore
Abdication of Edward VIII
House of Windsor
Jewellery collectors
Mistresses of Edward VIII
People from Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Wallis
Wives of British princes
Writers from Baltimore
Writers from Pennsylvania
Sex scandals
Time Person of the Year
Philanthropists from Maryland
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania | true | [
"Where Did They Go is a 1971 album by Peggy Lee. It was arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky and Al Capps.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Where Did They Go\" (Harry Lloyd, Gloria Sklerov) - 3:53\n\"My Rock and Foundation\" (Burt Bacharach, Hal David) - 2:37\n\"Help Me Make It Through the Night\" (Kris Kristofferson) - 2:45\n\"All I Want\" (Steve Clayton [aka P. Tedesco], Gladys Shelley) - 2:40\n\"I Don't Know How to Love Him\" (Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber) - 3:24\n\"Goodbye Again\" (Donald J. Addrissi, Richard P. Addrissi) - 2:33\n\"Sing\" (Joe Raposo) - 2:25\n\"I Was Born in Love with You\" (Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, Michel Legrand) - 4:01\n\"Losing My Mind\" (Stephen Sondheim) - 2:43\n\"My Sweet Lord\" (George Harrison) - 2:55\n\nNotes\nThe recording sessions for this album took place at the Capitol Tower in Hollywood, California.\n\nWhere Did They Go was Peggy Lee's first album not to make the Billboard 200 chart since her Grammy-winning hit \"Is That All There Is?\" in 1969.\n\nBurt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the song \"My Rock And Foundation\" specifically for Lee.\n\nCapitol Records released \"Where Did They Go\" (backed by \"All I Want\") as a 45\" single in 1971. The single did not make the charts.\n\nLee performed songs from this album, including \"Where Did They Go\" and \"My Sweet Lord,\" during her June 1971 engagement at The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.\n\nAfter completing work on Where Did They Go, Peggy Lee did not return to the recording studio again until nearly a year later, when she began recording Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota in April 1972.\n\nThis album was released on 8-track, along with LP.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Peggy Lee Discography\n\n1971 albums\nCapitol Records albums\nPeggy Lee albums\nAlbums arranged by Don Sebesky\nAlbums produced by Snuff Garrett",
"Where Did We Go Wrong may refer to:\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Dondria song), 2010\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Toni Braxton and Babyface song), 2013\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Petula Clark from the album My Love\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Diana Ross from the album Ross\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a 1980 song by Frankie Valli"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting"
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | What was one of his first screenwritings? | 1 | What was one of Dean Pitchford's first screenwritings? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | true | [
"Enn Leisson (11 July 1942 Tallinn – 10 June 1998 Tallinn) was an Estonian politician and journalist.\n\nHe was a member of XII Supreme Soviet of Estonia. He was also a member of Congress of Estonia, and Constitutional Assembly of Estonia.\n\nHe wrote several screenwritings for documentary films.\n\nReferences\n\n1942 births\n1998 deaths\nEstonian screenwriters\nEstonian journalists\nCommunist Party of Estonia politicians\nPoliticians from Tallinn\n20th-century screenwriters",
"Mari Tarand (14 January 1941 Tallinn – 5 October 2020) was an Estonian radio journalist.\n\nHer spouse was Andres Tarand. She is the mother of Indrek and Kaarel Tarand.\n\nIn 1963 she graduated from Tartu State University in Estonian philology. 1963-2005 she was an editor and commentator at Estonian Radio. Besides radio programs she also has written screenwritings for films.\n\nIn 2004 he was awarded with Order of the White Star, IV class.\n\nReferences\n\n1941 births\n2020 deaths\nEstonian journalists\nEstonian radio personalities\nRecipients of the Order of the White Star, 4th Class\nUniversity of Tartu alumni\nPeople from Tallinn\nBurials at Metsakalmistu"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting",
"What was one of his first screenwritings?",
"Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984)."
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | Was Footloose well received? | 2 | Was Footloose (1984) well received? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | false | [
"Footloose is a fictional character from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, comic books and animated series. He is the G.I. Joe Team's infantry trooper, and debuted in 1985.\n\nProfile\nHis real name is Andrew D. Meyers, and his rank is that of corporal E-4. Footloose was born in Gary, Indiana. Footloose wears a jungle camouflage pattern in his uniform and is equipped with a PASGT helmet with additional camo over it.\n\nFootloose's primary military specialty is infantry, and his secondary military specialty is special services (basketball coach). He was his high school valedictorian, captain of the track team, and an Eagle scout. While going for his degree in Physical Education on a state scholarship, he suddenly dropped out and moved to the coast for about three years. He spent time there pondering the pointlessness of his existence, when he decided to join the Army. After basic training and AIT at Fort Benning, he graduated jump school and the desert training unit. Footloose is a qualified expert in all NATO and Warsaw Pact small arms.\n\nIn the UK Action Force toy series, Footloose's real name is Andrew D. Mackay, and he is from Dundee, Scotland, where he competed in the Highland Games and studied Celtic mythology.\n\nToys\nFootloose was first released as an action figure in 1985. Proposed code-names for the figure included \"Action\", \"Bravo\" and \"Grunt\". The figure was repainted and released as part of the \"Slaughter's Marauders\" line in 1989.\n\nComics\n\nMarvel Comics\nIn the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe series, he first appeared in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #37 (July 1985). In that issue, despite his known inexperience, he is assigned to drive a small tank as backup to Flint. They are backup for the group of Blowtorch, Ripcord, Gung-Ho and Ripcord's girlfriend, Candy Appel. Said group had been attacked at the circus by the Crimson Twins. All the Joes become involved in a running battle throughout the grounds. He is then back-up for a raid on a suspected Cobra officer's house; coincidentally it is the home of Candy Appel's father.\n\nFootloose also takes part in the invasion of the Cobra-held town of Springfield.\n\nAction Force\nFootloose also appeared in the U.K. Action Force comic series, which had all original England based stories starring familiar Joe characters. In the first issue, Footloose is described as \"one of our best field agents\". Following, a Cobra underwater soldier Footloose had captured in the first issue is seen standing over his prone body with a knife. However, Footloose helps raid a Cobra outpost soon after. He then assists in stopping a Crimson Guard plan to blow up the Eiffel Tower. Another Crimson Guard, at a later time, ends up holding a classroom of his own students hostage. Footloose is one of the many authorities on the scene; ready to drop the man with a sniper rifle. He is not needed as of the Guard's own students talks the man into surrendering.\n\nDevil's Due\nFootloose takes part in the three battle between the Joes, Cobra, and the Coil.\n\nDuring the World War III storyline in America's Elite, Footloose is among the Joes deployed to Bolivia.\n\nAnimated series\n\nSunbow\nFootloose first appeared in the Sunbow/Marvel G.I. Joe miniseries \"The Pyramid of Darkness\". In this series, his personality is portrayed as usually in a zen state of mind, and one which is frequently out of touch with reality. \n\nHe is featured in the episode \"Excalibur\", in which he is one of the Joes setting up an anti-Cobra radar system in Britain. When Storm Shadow infiltrates the area, Footloose, Quick Kick and Spirit pursue him. Footloose is captured by Storm Shadow, but is later rescued by Quick Kick.\n\nFootloose's most notable role was in \"Hearts and Cannons\". The episode begins with him and Dusty jumping out of a damaged G.I. Joe cargo plane, along with their Mauler tank. They find themselves in a desert, where Cobra is testing their new Plasma Cannon weapon. They rescue Dr. Nancy Winters, a beautiful scientist who was tricked into designing the Plasma Cannon for Destro, and compete for her affection. Walking through a dust storm, Footloose escapes with Dr. Winters as he is ordered by Dusty, who fends off Cobra forces. Footloose and Dr. Winters are captured by King Ahmed Razouli Jabal, who initially mistakes them for Cobra members, but releases them when he recognizes the G.I. Joe logo on Footloose's uniform. The king gives Footloose the Mauler that was ejected earlier, and Footloose joins him in liberating his country from Cobra. Footloose eventually destroys Destro's plasma tank with the Mauler.\n\nFootloose is featured in one of the series' PSAs, in which he teaches a child how to stop a nosebleed.\n\nG.I. Joe: The Movie\nFootloose appeared briefly in the 1987 animated film G.I. Joe: The Movie, with no speaking role.\n\nDiC\nHe appeared again in the DiC-produced G.I. Joe animated series. He only appeared in the \"Operation Dragonfire\" miniseries, again with a silent role.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Footloose at JMM's G.I. Joe Comics Home Page\n\nComics characters introduced in 1985\nFictional characters from Indiana\nFictional corporals\nFictional military sergeants\nFictional United States Army personnel\nG.I. Joe soldiers\nMale characters in animated series\nMale characters in comics",
"Footloose: Original Soundtrack of the Paramount Motion Picture is the original soundtrack of the Paramount motion picture Footloose. The original nine-track album was released in 1984 and reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart on April 21, 1984, where it stayed until June 23, 1984. When it was re-released in 1998, four bonus tracks were added to the album, all of which were used in the film as well. In 2002, Sony International released the \"Australian Souvenir Edition\", also titled \"Australian Cast Special Edition\". Two megamixes were added to the album, featuring the Australian cast of the Footloose musical. The original soundtrack contained six Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hits, three of which reached the Top 10, including two number-one hits, \"Footloose\" by Kenny Loggins and \"Let's Hear It for the Boy\" by Deniece Williams, and \"Almost Paradise\", a duet by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno that reached number seven, plus \"Somebody's Eyes\" by Karla Bonoff climbed to number sixteen on the Adult Contemporary chart. Many people bought the soundtrack album without even seeing the film.\n\nIn 2009, Doveman released a reimagining of the soundtrack album. The original soundtrack for the 2011 remake was released by Atlantic Records and Warner Music Nashville on September 27, 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n\n signifies a remixer\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n1984 soundtrack albums\n1980s film soundtrack albums\nPop rock soundtracks\nDance-pop soundtracks\nFilm soundtracks\nColumbia Records soundtracks"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting",
"What was one of his first screenwritings?",
"Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).",
"Was Footloose well received?",
"The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history."
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | Did he do any screen writing for any foreign films? | 3 | Did Dean Pitchford do any screen writing for any foreign films besides Footloose? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | false | [
"Buta () is a 2011 Azerbaijani drama film written and directed by Ilgar Najaf. The film was selected as the Azerbaijani entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. In 2011 it won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Children's Feature Film.\n\nSee also\n List of submissions to the 85th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film\n List of Azerbaijani submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2011 films\n2011 drama films\n2011 directorial debut films\nAzerbaijani films\nAzerbaijani drama films\nAzerbaijani-language films",
"Scary Mother () is a 2017 Georgian drama film directed by Ana Urushadze. At the 23rd Sarajevo Film Festival, the film won the top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo. It was selected as the Georgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. Actress, Nato Murvanidze won the award for Best Performance by an Actress at the 2017 Asia Pacific Screen Awards for her performance in the film.\n\nPlot\nManana, a middle-aged woman, hopes to find herself by secretly penning a darkly erotic thriller. She hides the writing from her husband Anri, but tensions heighten after she lets him read an excerpt.\n\nCast\n Nato Murvanidze as Manana\n Dimitri Tatishvili as Anri\n Ramaz Ioseliani as Nukri\n Avtandil Makharadze as Jarji\n\nSee also\n List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film\n List of Georgian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2017 films\n2017 drama films\nFilms from Georgia (country)\nGeorgian-language films\nDrama films from Georgia (country)"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting",
"What was one of his first screenwritings?",
"Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).",
"Was Footloose well received?",
"The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.",
"Did he do any screen writing for any foreign films?",
"I don't know."
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | What other films did he work on? | 4 | Besides Footlose (1984), what other films did Dean Pitchford work on? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | true | [
"Disaster on the Coastliner is a 1979 American made-for-television action drama film. It was directed by Richard C. Sarafian and starred Lloyd Bridges, Raymond Burr, Robert Fuller, Pat Hingle, E. G. Marshall, Yvette Mimieux, William Shatner, and Paul L. Smith. It originally aired on The ABC Sunday Night Movie on October 28, 1979.\n\nPlot\nA disgruntled railroad employee attempts to cause a collision between two passenger trains.\n\nCast \nLloyd Bridges - Al Mitchell \nRaymond Burr - Estes Hill \nRobert Fuller - Matt Leigh \nPat Hingle - John Marsh \nE. G. Marshall - Roy Snyder \nYvette Mimieux - Paula Harvey \nWilliam Shatner - Stuart Peters \nPaul L. Smith - Jim Waterman / Victor Prescott\nLane Smith - John Carlson\nSandy McPeak - Hennessey\n\nProduction \nThe film was shot on a railway line in Connecticut. At his own suggestion William Shatner did his own stunts, including standing atop an F40PH. Years later Shatner called the stunt \"the most truly dangerous stunt I ever did\" and couldn't imagine \"what [he] was thinking\" in suggesting it. Shatner compared it to the work he'd done in Kingdom of the Spiders, and wondered which was worse: \"standing on top of a speeding locomotive without any kind of safety cable or gluing tarantulas to your face?\" Jack Sessums worked on the miniature effects and had his work profiled in TV Guide.\n\nRelease \nDisaster on the Coastliner premiered on The ABC Sunday Night Movie on October 28, 1979. Although no DVD or VHS has been released in America, the movie's current owner, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, has made the movie available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount plus in the United States.\n\nSee also\nList of television films produced for American Broadcasting Company\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nAmerican television films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\n1970s action drama films\nFictional trains\nFilms set on trains\nFilms shot in Connecticut\nRail transport films\nAmerican action drama films\n1979 films\nFilms directed by Richard C. Sarafian",
"Peter Rogers (20 February 1914 – 14 April 2009) was an English film producer. He is best known for his involvement in the making of the Carry On series of films.\n\nLife and career\nRogers began his career as a journalist for his local paper, before graduating to scriptwriting religious informational films. He progressed to film production, working with director Gerald Thomas, the first work being a production for the Children's Film Foundation. Rogers is best known as producer of the Carry On series of British comedy films, beginning with Carry On Sergeant in 1958. There were 31 films in all. Rogers had also been linked with a further instalment, Carry On London, which has been in pre-production for several years, but since his death seems unlikely to be made.\n\nThe majority of Rogers' work, including all the Carry On films, were made at Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England. His other credits included Appointment with Venus starring David Niven, and Time Lock in which Sean Connery made one of his earliest film appearances.\n\nRogers' other production ventures include the television series Ivanhoe with Roger Moore and the film adaptation of the long-running sitcom Bless This House with Carry On regular Sid James.\n\nHis wife was the film producer Betty Box, responsible for the Doctor series of films. They did not have any children, but their godson was actor and theatre producer Marc Sinden (who appeared in Carry On Columbus), the son of Sir Donald Sinden, who starred for Betty Box in, amongst other films, Doctor in the House, Doctor at Large and Mad About Men. Peter and Betty lived for many years at a large home in Beaconsfield, \"Drummers Yard\", that had been purchased from the actor Dirk Bogarde.\n\nAn authorized biography, Mr Carry On: The Life and Work of Peter Rogers (BBC) by Morris Bright and Robert Ross (author of The Carry On Companion and the Monty Python Encyclopedia) was published in 2000, with extensive input from Rogers. It attempted to defend him against charges that he exploited the cast of the Carry On films, by paying the lead actors an unchanged £5,000 per film, from the first in 1958 to the penultimate movie.\n\nRogers attended the 50th anniversary of the Carry On films held at Pinewood Studios in March 2008. He died on 14 April 2009, having been ill for several months.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nWhat a Carry On\nCarry On Films at The Whippit Inn\n Obituary, Daily Telegraph, 15 April 2009\n Obituary, The Times, 16 April 2009\n\n1914 births\n2009 deaths\nEnglish film producers\nPeople educated at King's School, Rochester\nPeople from Rochester, Kent\n20th-century English businesspeople"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting",
"What was one of his first screenwritings?",
"Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).",
"Was Footloose well received?",
"The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.",
"Did he do any screen writing for any foreign films?",
"I don't know.",
"What other films did he work on?",
"Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing."
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | Did he have any influencers? | 5 | Did Dean Pitchford have any influencers? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | true | [
"Influencer marketing (also known as influence marketing) is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencers are someone (or something) with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or other online channels. Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post. Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising.\n\nSocial influence \nMost discussions of social influence focus on social persuasion and compliance. In the context of influencer marketing, influence is less about arguing for a point of view or product than about loose interactions between parties in a community (often with the aim of encouraging purchasing or behavior). Although influence is often equated with advocacy, it may also be negative. The two-step flow of communication model was introduced in The People's Choice (Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet's 1940 study of voters' decision-making processes), and developed in Personal Influence (Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz 1955) and The Effects of Mass Communication (Joseph Klapper, 1960).\n\nInfluencer marketing is also important through social comparison theory. As psychologist Chae reports, influencers serve as a comparison tool. Consumers may compare influencer lifestyles with their imperfections. Meanwhile, followers may view influencers as people with perfect lifestyles, interests, and dressing style. As such, the promoted products may serve as a shortcut towards a complete lifestyle. Chae's study finds women with low self-esteem compare themselves to the influencers. As such, they elevate the status of influencers above themselves. When using an influencer, a brand may use consumer insecurities to its benefits. For this reason, influencer marketing may lead to faulty advertising.\n\nInfluencers \n\nThere is a lack of consensus about what an influencer is. One writer defines them as \"a range of third parties who exercise influence over the organization and its potential customers.\" Another defines an influencer as a \"third party who significantly shapes the customer's purchasing decision but may never be accountable for it.\" According to another, influencers are \"well-connected, create an impact, have active minds, and are trendsetters\". And just because an individual has many followers does not necessarily mean they have much influence over those individuals, only that they have many followers.\n\nIdentifying influencers \nMarket-research techniques can be used to identify influencers, using predefined criteria to determine the extent and type of influence. Activists get involved with organizations such as their communities, political movements, and charities. Connected influencers have large social networks. Authoritative influencers are trusted by others. Active minds have a diverse range of interests. Trendsetters are the early adopters (or leavers) of markets. According to Malcolm Gladwell, \"The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts\". He has identified three types of influencers who are responsible for the \"generation, communication and adoption\" of messages:\n Connectors network with a variety of people, have a wide reach, and are essential to word-of-mouth communication.\n Mavens use information, share it with others, and are insightful about trends.\n Salesmen are \"charismatic persuaders\". Their influence is the tendency of others to imitate their behavior.\n\nInfluencers are categorized by the number of followers they have on social media. They include celebrities with large followings to niche content creators with a loyal following on social-media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Their followers range in number from hundreds of millions to 1,000. Influencers may be categorized in tiers (mega-, macro-, micro-, and nano-influencers), based on their number of followers.\n\nBusinesses pursue people who aim to lessen their consumption of advertisements, and are willing to pay their influencers more. Targeting influencers is seen as increasing marketing's reach, counteracting a growing tendency by prospective customers to ignore marketing.\n\nMarketing researchers Kapitan and Silvera find that influencer selection extends into product personality. This product and benefit matching is key. For a shampoo, it should use an influencer with good hair. Likewise, a flashy product may use bold colors to convey its brand. If an influencer is not flashy, they will clash with the brand. Matching an influencer with the product's purpose and mood is important.\n\nB2B influencers \nFor most business-to-consumer (B2C) campaigns, influencers may include everyday consumers who have influence over their audience. In high-value business-to-business (B2B) transactions, influencers may be diverse and might include consultants, government-backed regulators, financiers, and user communities.\n\nForrester Research analyst Michael Speyer notes that for small and medium-sized businesses, \"IT sales are influenced by several parties, including peers, consultants, bloggers, and technology resellers.\" According to Speyer, \"Vendors need to identify and characterize influencers inside their market. This requires a comprehensive influencer identification program and the establishment of criteria for ranking influencer impact on the decision process.\" Influencers can play a variety of roles at different times in a decision-making process, an idea developed by Brown and Hayes.\n\nPayment \nMost influencers are paid before the start of a marketing campaign, and others are paid after it ends. Consensus exists about how much an influencer should be paid. Compensation may vary by how many people an influencer can reach, the extent to which they will endorse the product (a deliverable), and the success of their past endorsements have performed. Top-tier influencers and celebrities may receive a six- or seven-figure fee for a single social-media post. In addition to (or in lieu of) a fee, payment may include free products or services. For influencers with smaller followings, free products or services may be the only form of compensation.\n\nSocial media \nOnline activity can play a central role in offline decision-making, allowing consumers to research products. Social media have created new opportunities for marketers to expand their strategy beyond traditional mass-media channels. Many use influencers to increase the reach of their marketing messages. Online influencers who curate personal brands have become marketing assets because of their relationship with their followers. Social-media influencers establish themselves as opinion-leaders with their followers and may have persuasive strengths such as attractiveness, likeability, niche expertise, and perceived good taste. The interactive and personal nature of social media allows parasocial relationships to form between influencers and their followers, which impacts purchase behavior. Influencer marketing on social media reaches consumers who use ad-blockers.\n\nCritics of an online-intensive approach say that by researching exclusively online, consumers can overlook input from other influential individuals. Early-2000s research suggested that 80 to 92 percent of influential consumer exchanges occurred face-to-face with word-of-mouth (WOM), compared to seven to 10 percent in an online environment. Scholars and marketers distinguish WOM from electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).\n\n2017 controversies \nYouTuber PewDiePie's antisemitic and racist comments led to cancelled deals with the Walt Disney Company and a \"widespread backlash\". Celebrity influencer Kendall Jenner and other media personalities failed to disclose their paid endorsements of the fraudulent Fyre Festival, as required by the Federal Trade Commission. YouTuber Logan Paul posted a video containing a dead body in Japan's Suicide Forest, sparking a backlash and accusations of insensitivity.\n\nUse by governments\nA wide range of global population, particularly generation Z, has been relying on social media influencers for all sorts of information. With millions of followers on their accounts, including Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and others, influencers have not just been working with brands, but also governments. Countries like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have been using these influencers to spread a positive image of them and cover the bad press over human rights. In Dubai, many such influencers have been working to promote the city’s tourism by acquiring an expensive license or through agencies. It has become a full-time business in Dubai’s post-oil economy. The Emirati authorities follow rigid plans and strategies to hit the correct spots. A strict check is maintained over the content of the influencers to make sure that everything is being depicted in a positive light. Dubai authorities also restrict these influencers from speaking anything against the regime, religion, or politics.\n\nApplications\nMarketers use influencer marketing to establish credibility in a market, to create social conversations about brands, and to focus on driving online or in-store sales. Marketers leverage credibility gained over time to promote a variety of products or services. Success in influencer marketing is measured through earned media value, impressions, and cost per action.\n\nA social media influencer's personal brand and product relation with marketers are important concepts. As social learning theory suggests, influencers serve as informed consumers, and authenticity matters. When credible influencers match up with the product, consumers will consider the promoted recommendations. A study found that respondents see influencers as a neutral authority pitch for a product. Compared to CEO spokespeople, influencers are more approachable and trustworthy. Consumers are more likely to respond to influencers if both parties share certain characteristics and beliefs.\n\nA 2015 article depicts that attributions drive endorsers and that globally 77% of shoppers would or may take action following what family, friends, and online reviews endorse. It shows that word of mouth marketing and digital media have changed the impact and reach of endorsements.\n\nRegulation \nIn the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) treats influencer marketing as a form of paid endorsement. It is governed by the rules for native advertising, which include compliance with established truth-in-advertising standards and disclosure by endorsers (influencers) and is known as the Endorsement Guides. The FTC compiled an easy-to-read guide on disclosure for influencers, specifying rules and tips on how to make good disclosures on social media. The guidelines include reminders of disclosing sponsored products in easily visible places so it is hard to miss, using easy-to-understand language, and giving honest reviews about sponsored products.\n\nIn 2017, the FTC sent more than 90 educational letters to celebrity and athlete influencers with the reminder of the obligation to clearly disclose business relationships while sponsoring and promoting products. The same year, in response to YouTubers Trevor Martin and Thomas Cassell deceptively endorsing an online gambling site they owned, the FTC took three separate actions to catch the attention of influencers. By using law enforcement, warning letters, and updating the Endorsement Guidelines, the FTC provided influencers with endorsement questions or involved in misleading endorsements and disclosures with clear procedures of how to follow the laws.\n\nMedia-regulating bodies in other countries – such as Australia – followed the FTC in creating influencer-marketing guidelines. The United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority adopted similar laws and tips for influencers to follow.\n\nBranded content on social media platforms\n\nFacebook and Instagram \nFacebook and Instagram have a set of brand content policies for influencer marketing and endorsements. Branded content may only be posted through Instagram and Facebook, and require the business relationships between influencers and endorsers to be tagged when promoting branded content. The branded tool provided in the business layout of Facebook and Instagram is to be used whenever promoting products and endorsers.\n\nYouTube \nAs of August 2020, YouTube has updated the branded content policies. YouTube and Google's ad policies require influencers to check a box titled paid promotion when publishing sponsored videos and provides instructions on how to set it up. The policies require disclosure messages for the viewers to indicate that the content is promoted.\n\nFake influencers \nFake influencers have been around for as long as their genuine counterparts, and all criteria used to determine the veracity of an influencer account can be fabricated. Third-party sites and apps sell services to individual accounts which include falsely increasing followers, likes, and comments. Instagram has failed to shut down all such websites. One marketing agency tested whether fake accounts could be profitable. The company created two fictitious accounts, built their online presence through paid followers and engagement (likes and comments), and applied for work in marketing campaigns on popular influencer-marketing platforms. They published their results, an explanation of how the false accounts were created, and which brands had sponsored them.\n\nAn analysis of over 7,000 influencers in the UK indicated that about half of their followers have up to 20,000 \"low-quality\" followers themselves, consisting of internet bots and other suspicious accounts. Over four in 10 engagements with this group of influencers are considered \"non-authentic\". A study of UK influencers which looked at almost 700,000 posts from the first half of 2018 found that 12 percent of UK influencers had bought fake followers. Twenty-four percent of influencers were found to have abnormal growth patterns in another study, indicating that they had manipulated their likes or followers.\n\nInfluencer fraud (including fake followers) was estimated to cost businesses up to $1.3 billion, about 15 percent of global influencermarketing spending. Research in 2019 accounted only for the calculable cost of fake followers.\n\nVirtual influencers \nVirtual influencers are also sometimes considered fake. However, virtual-influencer profiles do not correspond to real individuals and are not automated bots which generate fake likes, comments, or followers. They are virtual characters, intentionally designed by 3D artists to look like real people in real situations. Although most of the characters can be easily identified as computer graphics, some are very realistic and can fool users. The characters are usually identified as models, singers, or other celebrities. Their creators write their biographies, conduct interviews on their behalf, and act like the characters themselves. Lil Miquela was a realistic virtual influencer which prompted curiosity and speculation until it was learned that she was created by advertisers.\n\nSee also\n\nAlpha user\nBusiness marketing\nCelebrity branding\nCustomer engagement\nInfluence-for-hire\nMass communication\nOpinion leadership\nRelationship marketing\nReputation management\nShill\nTestimonial\nWord-of-mouth marketing\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nInfluence (social and political)\nMarketing by target group\nPromotion and marketing communications",
"A fashion influencer is a personality that has a large number of followers on social media, creates mainly fashion content and has the power to influence the opinion and purchase behavior of others with their recommendations. Brands endorse them to attend fashion shows, parties, designer dinners and exclusive trips and to wear their clothes on social media. If a salary has been involved, the influencer may be required to label such posts as paid or sponsored content. Before social media \"they would have been called 'It girls'\".\n\nBusiness magazine Forbes identified fashion influencers as \"the new celebrity endorsements\". However, influencers seem to have a closer relationship with their audience than traditional celebrities. As marketers Jung von Matt, Brandnew IO and Facelift point out: \"Daily interactions across multiple channels, through photos, stories or live sessions, create a form of closeness and trust\" that make influencers \"often more tangible than traditional celebrities\".\n\nHistory \n\nIn the beginning of 2000, online fashion blogs appeared to be amateurish personal areas created as a hobby by fashion lovers to share their ideas of the latest trends or to get a job in the traditional fashion industry later on. With increasing reach, bloggers learned to monetize their contents. As Pedroni remarks: “fashion blogs evolved from personal diaries kept by fashion lovers, into sophisticated marketing and economic tools”.\n\nShortly after, new social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube spread. They enabled bloggers to reach a greater audience and have an even closer relationship with their existing readership. In fact, some bloggers closed their blogs as traffic moved to other platforms such as Instagram. According to researcher Emily Hund “Social media’s influencer economy has gained steam quickly in the last few years, particularly on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, whose image-heavy nature easily lends itself to commerce”. Social media also gave rise to influencers who did not have a blog in the first place. Jenn Im became a fashion influencer due to her successful YouTube channel, German influencer Pamela Reif due to her high reach on Instagram.\n\nIn 2017, Instagram was the social media platform with the highest reach for fashion influencers. Forbes calculated that the top ten fashion influencers combined generated a reach of 23.3 million on Instagram. It named Chiara Ferragni, Danielle Bernstein, Julia Engel, Gabi Gregg, Jenn Im, Susanna Lau, Nicolette Mason, Simone Zippi Stardust, Aimee Song, and Bryanboy as the top influencers in the fashion category.\n\nAt the same time, the fashion industry had the highest share on Instagram influencer marketing in the US. Its share, approximately 61%, far outweighed other sectors investing in influencer marketing such as travel (8%), and food and drinks (7%). The fashion industry spends around €1 billion on sponsored Instagram posts per year.\n\nBy 2019, many fashion influencers had \"closet accounts\" dedicated to them on social media. Often influential in their own right, these accounts search clothing websites to identify the clothes the influencers wear, and post the resulting shopping list. In doing so, they amplify the marketing power of the influencers and help shape business trends.\n\nBusiness \nFashion influencers generate income through brand co-operations and affiliate links. Principal sources of income are brand co-operations in terms of product placement. Fashion influencers are paid to pose with specific products on their social media channels and must mark them correspondingly.\n\nThe economic value of a fashion influencer is most commonly measured by number of followers. Other key aspects are demographics of their followers, engagement rate and fit between influencer and brand. The latter is the necessary precondition for influencers to work with a brand. As thousands of people follow them for their authentic personality and style, influencers must be able to identify themselves with the brand in order to recommend it convincingly. Many influencers claim to work exclusively with brands they really like and would recommend in private as well. Influencer Camille Charrière reportedly turned down a 5-digit offer of Macy’s, because she could not identify with the clothes: “At the end of the day, I’m selling my taste and my eye – if I do things off-brand I will lose the respect”.\n\nFor fashion influencers \n\nSuccessful fashion influencers generate an income through their social media activities that enables them to quit their jobs and focus solely on their social media career. German fashion influencer Xenia van der Woodsen (xeniaoverdose) left her full-time job at an investment trust, when she realized that she could earn more money with a single Instagram post than working mana full day in a regular job. Robert and Christina are US-based Instagram fashion influencers and bloggers with over 450K followers on Instagram. They feature content on fashion, decor, travel, and their life together, and have you covered for all kinds of style inspiration – her style, his style, and couple style.\n\nUntil fashion influencer Danielle Bernstein spoke out on her mid-six figures income in 2015, financial information about the influencer business were relatively rare and inconsistent. In 2017, a study of Jung von Matt, Brandnew IO and Facelift revealed that such a high income is relatively rare among influencers. Only eight out of the 1,200 interviewed influencers earn in average between $10,000 – 25,000 per campaign and only three of them more than $25,000. Albeit the “leading fashion influencers in Germany make over one million in revenue each year”, the majority makes less than $1,000 per campaign.\n\nA majority of influencers receive a salary. Solely a minority of 20 percent makes brand co-operations in exchange for giveaways. The salary primarily depends on the number of followers. The higher the follower number, the higher the salary range. The price for a cooperation depends also on the contract terms, for example if it concerns a one-time Instagram post or a long-term partnership including several posts. Xenia van der Woodsen, one of Germany’s top three fashion influencers in 2017, accepts only long-term brand co-operations in the majority of cases. In her experience, posts of long-term campaigns appear more authentic and credible, whereas single paid content pieces stand out as advertisement.\n\nAffiliate links \nAffiliate links enable fashion influencers to earn money on commission. The procedure was introduced by Amber Venz Box in 2011 and then updated in 2014.\n\nFor fashion brands \nFashion brands use the reach and positive reputation of influencers by implementing influencer marketing. Influencers spread brand messages, increase brand awareness, contribute to a positive brand image and increase sales by tagging fashion brands in their posts.\n\nAlthough data that shows the direct correlation between influencer campaigns and sales are rare, the success of affiliate platforms as rewardStyle and successful examples such as the #mangogirls campaign, indicate that influencer engagement affects sales. In the #mangogirls campaign several influencers had independently chosen the same coat as their favorite piece of the Mango collection and showcased it on Instagram. The coat went viral and sold-out. In fact, first studies show that every third consumer has already bought a product following the recommendation of an influencer.\n\nCriticism \nFashion influencers have been criticized by journalists for their lack of transparency on sponsored posts. The lines between posts in which influencers share product recommendations for free or because they are paid for it are often blurred. Influencers are supposed to mark a sponsored post with hashtags such as #ad or #sponsored, but often use less-obvious hashtags like #sp or none at all.\n\nDue to this lack of transparency, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent out dozens of warning letters to Instagram influencers in the beginning of 2017, giving further indications to influencers and marketers on how to disclose advertising and sponsored posts. Following the rules of the FTC, hashtags like #ad have to appear before the \"more\" button and are not allowed to be buried in a flood of other hashtags. Thus, \"anyone endorsing a brand must \"clearly and conspicuously\" declare connections to it, for example, if products have been given free, if a payment has been made for the endorsement or if there is a business or family relationship\".\n\nin June 2017, Instagram launched a new disclosure system with which users can tag sponsors in a post. If the brand confirms the commercial relation, the post is marked with a \"paid partnership\" tag at the top.\n\nSee also \n Affiliate marketing\n Celebrity branding\n Instagram models\n\nReferences \n\nInfluence (social and political)\nFashion\nFashion influencers"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting",
"What was one of his first screenwritings?",
"Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).",
"Was Footloose well received?",
"The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.",
"Did he do any screen writing for any foreign films?",
"I don't know.",
"What other films did he work on?",
"Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.",
"Did he have any influencers?",
"He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others."
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | Was that film well received by critics? | 6 | Was the film Footloose (1984) well received by critics? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | false | [
"Nashville received numerous awards and nominations from various critical organizations, including major institutions such as the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and British Academy Film Awards, as well as regional critical associations. The film was nominated for a total of 11 Golden Globe nominations, to date the most ever received by one film. It also received four Golden Globe nominations in a single acting category; this was and remains unprecedented for major film award shows.\n\nIt won a BAFTA Film Award for Best Sound Track. Altman won for best director from: Cartagena Film Festival; Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards; National Board of Review; National Society of Film Critics Awards; and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Lily Tomlin was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress.\n\nAccolades\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n Awards for Nashville at the Internet Movie Database\n\nLists of accolades by film",
"How Is Your Fish Today?, also known as Jin Tian De Yu Zen Me Yang?, is a 2007 Chinese film written by Xiaolu Guo and Hui Rao. It was directed by Xiaolu Guo. The film is a drama set in modern China, focusing on the intertwined stories of two main characters; a frustrated writer (Hui Rao) and the subject of his latest work, Lin Hao (Zijiang Yang). How Is Your Fish Today won 4 international awards and was well received by critics, but was not commercially successful.\n\nCast\n Hui Rao as himself\n Zijiang Yang as Lin Hao\n Xiaolu Guo as Mimi\n Ning Hao as Hu Ning\n\nReception\nHow Is Your Fish Today? was consistently given good ratings by reviewers, but still remains fairly unpopular.\n\nCritics\nOn its release, How Is Your Fish Today? was received well by critics, who applauded the film as an impressive debut from Guo.\n\nAwards\n \"Grand Prix\" at the 2007 Créteil International Women's Film Festival\n Special Mention at the 2007 Fribourg International Film Festival\n Special Mention at the 2007 Pesaro International Film Festival of New Cinema\n NETPAC Special Mention at the 2007 Rotterdam International Film Festival\n\nNominations\n\n \"Tiger Award\" at the 2007 Rotterdam International Film Festival\n \"Grand Jury Prize\" in the World Cinema/Dramatic categories at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHOW IS YOUR FISH TODAY? site for Independent Lens on PBS \n \n \n \n\n2007 films\nChinese films\nMandarin-language films\nFilms directed by Xiaolu Guo"
] |
[
"Dean Pitchford",
"Screenwriting",
"What was one of his first screenwritings?",
"Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).",
"Was Footloose well received?",
"The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.",
"Did he do any screen writing for any foreign films?",
"I don't know.",
"What other films did he work on?",
"Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.",
"Did he have any influencers?",
"He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others.",
"Was that film well received by critics?",
"I don't know."
] | C_0882c1996e144ed9a10cf2bb0411ca9b_0 | Did he ever do any televised interviews? | 7 | Did Dean Pitchford ever do any televised interviews? | Dean Pitchford | Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history. When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song. Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.
In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.
Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.
Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.
With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.
For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.
"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).
Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."
Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.
Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.
Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.
Later songwriting
With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.
Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.
The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).
Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).
The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.
Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.
Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.
References
External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel
1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people | false | [
"Gordon John Horner (1912 – January 10, 2005) was a noted sports journalist who worked in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market of Minnesota. He participated in the first modern television broadcasts of KSTP-TV channel 5, appearing on the first fully electronic telecast in the state on December 7, 1947 (others had appeared on the mechanical TV station W9XAT in the 1930s). When the station began regular broadcasts in April 1948, he provided play-by-play for a televised baseball game between the Minneapolis Millers and a team from Louisville. Jack Horner also broadcast the first live televised game of the Harlem Globetrotters and provided one of the last interviews of Babe Ruth.\n\nHorner began his career in radio, starting at KGFK in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1935. He worked at several stations in Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Dakota before moving to Saint Paul to work at KSTP in 1944. After working at KSTP for a decade, he moved on to KEYD channel 9 (now KMSP) as that station was beginning operations. By the 1960s, he was working for WTCN (today's KARE). Throughout his career, he was known as \"Mr. Sports\" and added colorful commentary to all of his work.\n\nHe largely retired from broadcasting in the late 1960s, spending time working for the local Chamber of Commerce and the March of Dimes. He retired from that work in 1977, but continued to periodically do announcing and voice-over work. Horner enjoyed being able to provide services for the blind. He has been honored by local media organizations, most recently by the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in 2001.\n\nAbout\nJack Horner, \"Mr. Sports,\" compiled one of the most impressive lists of firsts in broadcasting history, and has set high standards for those who followed him. His career began in 1935 at KGFK Moorhead. After working at WSAU Wausau, Wisconsin, KTRI Sioux City, Iowa, WTMJ Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and KFJM/KILO Grand Forks, North Dakota, he joined KSTP Saint Paul/Minneapolis in 1944 to broadcast University of Minnesota football games and other sports. On December 7, 1947, he hosted the first live television program in Minnesota history for KSTP TV. He also broadcast the first baseball game ever televised in Minnesota, the first no-hit no-run game ever televised, and the first televised appearance of the Harlem Globetrotters. He joined KEYD TV Minneapolis/Saint Paul (now KMSP TV) in 1954, then moved to WTCN TV Minneapolis/Saint Paul (now KARE TV). He did sports programming for Twin Cities radio stations WPBC, KJJO, and KFAN. He also was active as a volunteer, broadcasting a weekly one-hour sports show for Minnesota State Services for the Blind for over 20 years.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJack Horner at the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting\nInterview with Joe Louis in 1948\nInterview Willie Mays in 1951\nInterview with Babe Ruth\nStar Tribune: Minnesota TV pioneer Jack Horner dies at 92.\n\n1912 births\n2005 deaths\nTelevision in Minnesota\nMinneapolis Lakers announcers",
"Hockey Night in Canada began airing on Saturday nights on CBC Television in 1952. National coverage of the NHL in the U.S. was limited to Saturday afternoon regular season games on CBS, running for four seasons from 1956–57 to 1959–60.\n\nYear-by-year breakdown\n\n1953\nIn the 1952–53 season, CBC began televising Hockey Night in Canada as a simulcast to the radio calls, joining the games in progress either 30 minutes or 60 minutes after the opening faceoff. Until 1961, the CBC was the only operating television network in Canada. Not only that, it was likely that not all Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens playoff games were televised in the early years, including to their local markets.\n\n1954\nCBC's coverage of Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 1954 Stanley Cup Finals were joined in progress at 9:30 p.m. (approximately one hour after start time). Meanwhile, CBC joined Game 6 in at 10 p.m. (again, one hour after start time). Game 7 was carried Dominion wide (nationwide) from the opening face-off at 9 p.m. Since Game 7 was played on Good Friday night, there were no commercials (Imperial Oil was the sponsor).\n\n1955\nGame 3 of the Detroit-Toronto playoff series and Game 5 of the Boston-Montreal series were televised nationally.\n\n1956\nGame 4 of the Montreal-New York Rangers playoff series was not the potential clincher, nor was it played in Montreal. Therefore, there was a possible chance that the game wasn't going to be televised.\n\n1957\nCBS first broadcast National Hockey League games for four seasons from to . CBS aired games on Saturday afternoons with Bud Palmer serving as the play-by-play announcer and Fred Cusick provided color commentary, pregame, and intermission interviews for the first three seasons. In , Cusick moved over to play-by-play while Brian McFarlane came in to do the color commentary, pregame, and intermission interviews. The pregame and intermission interviews were done on the ice, with the interviewer on skates. No playoff games were televised during this period, and all broadcasts took place in one of the four American arenas at the time.\n\nAs previously mentioned, CBS covered the 1956–57 season on Saturday afternoons, starting on January 5. For the next three years, CBS continued airing games on Saturday afternoons starting on November 2, 1957, October 18, 1958 and January 9, 1960.\n\nGames 1, 2 and 4 of the Montreal-New York Rangers playoff series were not likely seen outside the Montreal region if not televised at all.\n\n1958\nGames 1, 2 and 3 of the Montreal-Detroit playoff series were likely not seen outside Quebec.\n\n1959\nCBC's telecast of Game 7 of Toronto-Boston playoff series at Boston Garden joins just before the start of the second period. Bill Hewitt and Foster Hewitt were simulcasting on Toronto's CKFH and CBC Radio, and one of them welcomes the television audience.\n\nReferences\n\n \nCBS Sports\nCBC Sports\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n1950s in Canadian television\n1950s in American television"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career"
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | What did McGinnity do later in life? | 1 | What did Joe McGinnity do later in life? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | true | [
"Michael McGinnity (11 September 1941 – 9 January 2016) was chairman and life president of Coventry City Football Club.\n\nHe held the position of life president at the club following resigning as chairman in 2006 due to ongoing health problems. He was succeeded by Geoffrey Robinson MP and later Ray Ranson, the former footballer turned entrepreneur.\n\nMcGinnity became chairman in 2002, replacing Bryan Richardson, after eight years as deputy chairman of the club. McGinnity also has an MBE.\n\nMcGinnity purchased a company called Pel in the summer of 1989, creating a new division specialising in plastic seating for football stadia. In January 1990 the Taylor report into the Hillborough disaster recommended all-seater stadia. The success of Pel Stadium Seating was subsequently attributed to having set up in time to benefit from the Taylor report.\n\nReferences\n\n1941 births\n2016 deaths\nEnglish football chairmen and investors\nCoventry City F.C. directors and chairmen\nMembers of the Order of the British Empire\n20th-century English businesspeople",
"The McCullough Report is a report published by the Irish Roman Catholic bishops in June 2005 following allegations of homosexual sexual abuse between seminarians and staff at St Patrick's College, Maynooth in Ireland. The report looked at how the College responded to the allegations, and found that no specific allegations of sexual abuse had been made. Instead it found that the allegations were focused on the alleged lifestyle and possible \"homosexual tendencies\" of Micheál Ledwith, at the time Vice-President of the college, and that the Dean of the college, Gerard McGinnity, had expressed non-specific concerns about possible improprieties in Ledwith's relationship with some students. Although the report did not find that there were allegations of sexual harassment made against Ledwith, it did find that the concerns raised by McGinnity were not adequately investigated.\n\nBackground\nThe inquiry leading to this report was commissioned by the bishops of following media reports that complaints of sexual harassment of junior seminarians at Maynooth in the early 1980s had not received a proper response. Micheál Ledwith, who at the time of the alleged complaints had been Vice-President of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, had, it was claimed, been the subject of complaints relating to the possible sexual harassment of some students at the college. Students were alleged to have raised concerns with a number of bishops, who then failed to investigate the claims. These complaints were also said to have been raised by Dr. Gerard McGinnity, the Dean of the college. However, it was alleged that McGinnity's concerns were similarly ignored. Shortly thereafter McGinnity took a twelve-month sabbatical, and instead of returning to his previous position at the college he was transferred to a rural parish.\n\nProcess\nIn June 2002, Denis McCullough SC was retained by the bishops to investigate the allegations that those complaints had not received a proper response. McCullough was not asked to investigate whether or not incidents of sexual harassment had occurred, but had a brief that was limited to investigating the if complaints were made any responses that emerged from those complaints. As part of his investigation, McCullough approached the five seminarians who were believed to have been the core group who raised concerns, McGinnity, all of the surviving Bishops who had been involved with alleged the complaints, and Micheál Ledwith. One of the seminarians was not interviewed as part of the inquiry as the individual concerned chose not to be involved, and McGinnity did not contribute to this inquiry. In addition to the interviews, McCullough examined documentary records, including Minutes and correspondence.\n\nThe report took over three years to complete, and was released on 16 June 2005.\n\nFindings\nMcCullough's report found that none of those interviewed had made complaints about sexual harassment in regard to Micheál Ledwith. Those interviewed stated that they were unaware of any such allegations, and had not related them to the Bishops, Trustees, or McGinnity. The complaints were more general, focused on apparent propensities rather than specific criminal acts, and were related to his apparent extravagant lifestyle and alleged \"homosexual tendencies\".\n\nNevertheless, the report also found that McGinnity may have expressed concerns about possible improprieties in Ledwith's relationship with some students, although once again it was in terms of general propensities rather than any specific claims. When McGinnity was asked to produce a student to substantiate these allegations, McGinnity was unable to do so. According to the report, it seems that the lack of evidence meant that those looking into the issue felt that there was no foundation to the allegations, and subsequently McGinnity went on sabbatical. In his findings, McCullough concluded \"that to have rejected the senior dean's concerns so completely and so abruptly without any adequate investigation may have been too precipitate, although, of course, to investigate in any very full or substantial manner, a generic complaint regarding a person's apparent propensities would have been difficult\".\n\nResponses\nThe Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Seán Brady stated, following the publication of The McCullough Report, that \"those seminarians who expressed concern in the early eighties were acting in good faith. We regret any hurt felt by those involved and that the investigation in 1984 was not more thorough\".\n\nLater in 2005 the Ferns Report was published and dealt in part with the allegations made by the seminarians against Micheal Ledwith. Dr. Ginnity was interviewed this time, and at section 4.6 the report states that the seminarians made \"no specific allegations\" but \"had an anxiety with regard to orientation and propensity rather than with specific sexual activity.\"\n\nReferences\n\nCatholic Church sexual abuse scandals in Ireland\n2005 in Ireland\n2005 works\n2005 in Christianity"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000"
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | When did he make the purchase? | 2 | When did Joe McGinnity make the purchase? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | in 1909 | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | true | [
"Houldsworth v Bridge Trustees Ltd [2011] UKSC 42 is a UK pensions and UK labour law case concerning the difference between a final salary and a money purchase pension scheme. It matters because final salary schemes fall under the minimum funding requirements, whereas money purchase schemes do not.\n\nFacts\nBridge Trustees operated a final salary occupational pension since 1971. In 1983, the final salary benefits were reduced, as were contributions, but members could make further contributions and receive more under a \"voluntary investment planning\" scheme. In 1992, a new \"MoneyMatch\" plan allowed members to convert their final salary benefits and their contributions would be matched by the employer. Before 6 April 1997, the scheme was contracted out of the state earnings related pension scheme, as there was a guaranteed minimum pension paid out of the MoneyMatch plan. In 2003, the employer went insolvent, the scheme would up and there were pension deficits. The trustee asked the court whether the scheme was \"money purchase\" under the Pensions Act 1995 section 73. This counts the outstanding money as a debt due from the employer, unless it is a money purchase scheme.\n\nThe judge held that the scheme was money purchase, despite the MoneyMatch contributions, the employers matching credits being put into the guaranteed interest fund, and the capital value of a member's interest being internally converted to an annuity. The Court of Appeal upheld the judge's conclusions.\n\nJudgment\nLord Walker held that the Pension Schemes Act 1993 section 181 did not define money purchase benefits as ones calculated only by reference to payments made by the member. Assets and liabilities did not need to be in equilibrium as a part of the money purchase scheme definition. But in all insured schemes and self-administered schemes, the assumption was usually justified. It followed that the guaranteed interest fund did not disconnect a member's eventual benefits from contributions, and take it out of the definition under section 181. Providing internal annuities, as opposed to buying them from a life office was compatible with the meaning of a money purchase scheme. So, the VIP and MoneyMatch plans were money purchase benefits. The reference in regulation 13(1)(ii) of the Occupational Pension Schemes (Winding Up) Regulations 1996 to “the assets by reference to which the rate or amount of those benefits is calculated” showed Parliament contemplated that money purchase benefits would normally be adequately funded but not over-funded, and money or assets to be withdrawn from the unappropriated fund for the purposes of section 73 of the 1995 Act should be of an amount or value equal to the money purchase benefits calculated by the guaranteed interest fund mechanism, less appropriate deductions for elements which under regulation 13(2)(a) are not “relevant money purchase benefits”, but take first priority under section 73 of the 1995 Act.\n\nBaroness Hale, Lord Clarke and Lord Collins concurred. Lord Mance dissented.\n\nSee also\n\nUK labour law\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nUnited Kingdom labour case law\n2011 in case law\n2011 in British law\nSupreme Court of the United Kingdom cases",
"A cashback website is a type of reward website that pays its members a percentage of money earned when they purchase goods and services via its affiliate links.\n\nCashback shopping\nUsers of cashback websites can know ahead of time how much they stand to get back for their purchases at each specific retailer before they buy. Sites vary on what form of cashback rebates they offer their users. Some programs will provide the users with a percentage of the total purchase price, while others have a flat sum that they pay out for each action.\n\nWhen a customer makes a purchase online, instead of visiting the retailer directly, they may choose to follow a link from a cashback website to generate a monetary reward when buying products or services. The cashback website receives a commission from the retailer that, after the purchase is confirmed, is shared with the customer who made the purchase.\n\nThe amount of time that it takes to receive the cashback benefits is dependent on the site. Certain sites will make their payments every four to six weeks, while others will only issue their rebates after a few months. The time gap between purchase and cashback payment is observed to rule out cashback payment to cancelled or returned goods. \n\nPayment is generally made to the user in the form of bank transfers, gift vouchers, online sites such as PayPal, bank checks, mobile recharges or online orders at the request of the user. Some cashback websites place a threshold on a customer's account such that a user may need to make several transactions in order to be able to receive a reward.\n\nMany cashback sites offer users a reward for referring others to the site. Some cashback sites also offer discussion forums, paid online surveys, daily deals, and other rewards to increase traffic and maintain customer loyalty.\n\nReferences\n\nCashback and rebate\nReward websites"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909"
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | Was the team successful after he bought it? | 3 | Was the team successful after Joe McGinnity bought the Newark Indians? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | That season, he had a 29-16 record. | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | false | [
"Harold 'Harry' Millership (1889-1959) was a Welsh international footballer. He was part of the Wales national football team between 1920 and 1921, playing 6 matches. He played his first match on 14 February 1920 against Ireland and his last match on 9 April 1921 also against Ireland. At club level, he played for several clubs with Rotherham County being his most successful. He made 49 war-time guest appearances for Leeds City, scoring 6 goals in total. On 17 October 1919, an auction was held at the Metropole Hotel in Leeds, where the playing staff of Leeds was auctioned off along with other assets of the club. The 16 members of the playing squad were bought by 9 different clubs for a total of £9,250. Millership was bought by Rotherham County for £1,000, it was the second highest bid for a player. Billy McLeod was bought for £1,250 by Notts County.\n\nSee also\n List of Wales international footballers (alphabetical)\n\nReferences\n\n1889 births\nWelsh footballers\nWales international footballers\nLeeds City F.C. players\nRotherham County F.C. players\nPlace of birth missing\nYear of death missing\nAssociation football fullbacks",
"Saurabh Sunil Tiwary (born 30 December 1989) is an Indian cricketer who plays as a left-handed middle order batsman. He was one of the key batsmen in the Indian team that won the 2008 Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia.\n\nIndian Premier League\nHe represented Mumbai Indians from the 2008 Indian Premier League. He had become a regular player for them in the IPL 2010, where he was dubbed as a left-handed version of Mahendra Singh Dhoni.\n\nHe has won the Under-23 player of the tournament for IPL 2010 representing Mumbai Indians as he had a fairly successful tournament, scoring 419 runs in 16 matches, at an average of 29.92 and strike rate of 135.59. He was signed by Royal Challengers Bangalore for the 2011 Indian Premier League at a price of US$1.6 million. In 2014 IPL auction, he was signed by Delhi Daredevils for 70 lakhs Indian rupees. After Tiwary was sidelined by an injured shoulder, he was replaced by Imran Tahir. In the 2016 IPL, Tiwary and Albie Morkel were traded by the Delhi Daredevils to the new franchise Rising Pune Supergiants. In 2016 IPL he scored two promising half centuries against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians.\n\nIn February 2017, he was bought by the Mumbai Indians team for the 2017 Indian Premier League for 30 lakhs. He scored a half century playing against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens on 13 May 2017. In January 2018, he was bought by the Mumbai Indians in the 2018 IPL auction. In the 2020 IPL auction, he was bought by the Mumbai Indians ahead of the 2020 Indian Premier League.\n\nInternational career\nTiwary was called into the squad for the 2010 Asia Cup, but did not play. He made his ODI debut against Australia in Visakhapatnam in October 2010 after a few first-choice players were rested.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nIndia One Day International cricketers\nMumbai Indians cricketers\nJharkhand cricketers\n1989 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Ramgarh district\nIndian cricketers\nRoyal Challengers Bangalore cricketers\nEast Zone cricketers\nIndia Red cricketers\nIndia Blue cricketers\nIndia Green cricketers\nRising Pune Supergiant cricketers\nCricketers from Bihar"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909",
"Was the team successful after he bought it?",
"That season, he had a 29-16 record."
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | Did he own the team for the rest of his life? | 4 | Did Joe McGinnity own the Newark Indians for the rest of his life? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | true | [
"Charles Albert \"Joe\" Green (July 26, 1878 – September 18, 1962) was an American baseball outfielder and manager in the pre-Negro leagues and the beginning of the Negro National League.\n\nGreen began his baseball career with the Chicago Clippers in 1900.\n\nIn 1903, he played for the Columbia Giants, then the Chicago Union Giants, the Leland Giants, then spent most of the rest of his playing career for the Chicago Giants where he also managed the team. He took over the team after Frank Leland died on November 14, 1914.\n\nLater in his life, Green put his own name on the team, calling them \"Joe Green's Chicago Giants,\" a team typically made up of popular ex-players of the Negro leagues and pre-Negro leagues.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n and Baseball-Reference Black Baseball stats and Seamheads\n and Seamheads\n\nChicago Giants players\nLeland Giants players\nNegro league baseball managers\n1878 births\n1962 deaths\nBaseball players from Chicago\n20th-century African-American people\nBaseball outfielders",
"For the Rest of My Life is a song by Robin Thicke\n\nFor the Rest of My Life may also refer to:\n\"For The Rest of My Life\", song by Gary Numan from Dead Moon Falling\n\"For The Rest of My Life\", song by Steve Augeri 2013\n\"For The Rest of My Life\", song by Dakota Staton Rose Marie McCoy, Charles Singleton\t1955\n\"For The Rest of My Life\", song by Donna Fargo\tFargo 1979\n\"For The Rest of My Life\", song by Eugene Church and The Fellows, Church, Williams \t1959\n\"For The Rest of My Life\", song by Richard Kerr\tKerr, Peel 1969\n\"For The Rest of My Life (Dedicate All' Amore)\", by\tDionne Warwick Curtis, Carraresi, Pace\t1968"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909",
"Was the team successful after he bought it?",
"That season, he had a 29-16 record.",
"Did he own the team for the rest of his life?",
"McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912."
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | Did he sell in 1912? | 5 | Did Joe McGinnity sell the Newark Indians in 1912? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | true | [
"Dr. Helmut Sell (1898–1956) and his wife Annemarie (1896–1972) were German Holocaust rescuers living in Berlin during the Third Reich. In 1981, they were posthumously honored as \"Righteous among the Nations\" by Yad Vashem at a ceremony in Jerusalem. In October 2002, the medal was finally presented to the children of the Sells at a ceremony in Schenectady, New York.\n\nDr. Sell owned a small factory for fine mechanical parts at the Englische Strasse in Berlin-Dahlem. In March 1943, he hired as a delivery boy a Jewish youth who had been living illegally on the streets of Berlin since May 1942. Dr. Sell did not realize at the time that the boy, who showed up dressed in a Hitler Youth uniform, was a disguised Jew. When, three weeks later, the boy, Ezra Ben Gershom, confided his true identity, Sell responded by identifying himself as an old-time Social Democrat and a sworn enemy of the Nazi regime.\n\nSell arranged forged travel documents for the boy, which purported to prove that he was going to Vienna at the behest of the German armaments industry. On the last nights before the journey, he sheltered Gershom in his own home in Potsdam, and provided him with food and counsel. Dr. Sell's wife Annemarie was also party to the secret.\n\nOn May 28, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Dr. Helmuth and Annemarie Sell as Righteous Among the Nations.\n\nReferences\n\nGerman Righteous Among the Nations\n1898 births\n1956 deaths\n1896 births\n1972 deaths",
"Assist-2-Sell is an American real estate franchise organization operating in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1987 by Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle E. Martin and is based in Reno, Nevada.\n\nHistory\nAssist-2-Sell was founded in 1987 by Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle E. Martin, who had been conventional real estate agents for 10 years prior to founding Assist-2-Sell. They did not want to spend a significant portion of their time looking for clients so created a discount real estate firm in the hopes that with lower prices, clients would directly come to Assist-2-Sell. Assist-2-Sell is founded in and based in Reno.\n\nAccording to The Commercial Appeal, Assist-2-Sell \"falls between using a traditional real estate firm and selling your home yourself\". The Portland Press Herald said in 2000, \"Word of Assist-2-Sell's rates and reputation has gotten around the realty circle with reaction ranging from skepticism to intimidation.\"\n\nReno Gazette-Journal in 2002 called Assist-2-Sell \"[o]ne of North America's largest residential discount realty companies\". In 2006, it had 630 offices in Canada and 46 American states.\n\nIts main competitor is the company Help-U-Sell. Newsweek said Help-U-Sell and Assist-2-Sell are \"the two largest flat-fee brokerages\" that in 2004 had a combined almost 900 offices.\n\nServices and franchise program\nAssist-2-Sell has two advertising options for clients to choose from. In the first option, \"Direct to Buyer\", the real estate agent acts like a conventional agent by marketing the property and dealing with the documents. In the second option, \"MLS for Less\", sellers get all of the benefits from the previous method as well as having their house listed on the MLS. It advertises houses through newspapers, magazines, mail, and signs, as well as the iHouse2000.com website. The company receives a commission only after a house is sold.\n\nAssist-2-Sell started its franchise program in 1995. Every franchisee is managed and held independently. Assist-2-Sell provides coaching for its franchisees by teaching them how to establish and operate a back office, how to hire real estate agents, how to draw in customers, and how to display houses. In 2004, Assist-2-Sell charged franchisees $19,500 in addition to a 5% cut of each sold home.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nCompanies based in Reno, Nevada\nReal estate companies established in 1987\nFranchises\nReal estate services companies of the United States\n1987 establishments in Nevada"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909",
"Was the team successful after he bought it?",
"That season, he had a 29-16 record.",
"Did he own the team for the rest of his life?",
"McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912.",
"Did he sell in 1912?",
"McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League"
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | What did he do after selling? | 6 | What did Joe McGinnity do after selling the Newark Indians? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | false | [
"Southern Gal is the debut album by American singer-songwriter Terry Ellis. It was released by EastWest Records on November 14, 1995. Recorded and released during the time her band En Vogue were on a two-year hiatus, the album includes the R&B Top 40 hit singles, \"Where Ever You Are\" and \"What Did I Do to You?\".\n\nCritical reception\n\nSenior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic rated the album two out of five stars and found that while Southern Gal \"is a smooth, commercial-oriented, hip-hop-informed, contemporary R&B album with pop leanings [and] Ellis' voice is in fine form [...] the album is far from compelling. Even with all the production detail and Ellis'strong performance, it sinks from its lack of high quality songs.\"\n\nSingles\n\"Where Ever You Are\" was the lead single from the album. It was released on 17 October 1995. The song is Ellis's best selling song to date. It peaked at No.10 in the US R&B Top 40 and peaked at No.52 on the US Hot 100.\n\"What Did I Do To You?\" was the second and final single released from the album. The single was less successful than her previous single. It did however manage to spend 10 weeks on the US R&B Chart, peaking at No.41.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1995 debut albums",
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909",
"Was the team successful after he bought it?",
"That season, he had a 29-16 record.",
"Did he own the team for the rest of his life?",
"McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912.",
"Did he sell in 1912?",
"McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League",
"What did he do after selling?",
"He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager,"
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | Did he play for anyone else? | 7 | Did Joe McGinnity play for anyone else aside from the Tigers? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | true | [
"Anyone for Denis? may refer to:\n\n 'Dear Bill', a series of letters in satirical magazine Private Eye purporting to be from Denis Thatcher\n Anyone for Denis? (play) a stage play based on the above\n Anyone for Denis? (video), a 1982 television adaptation of the play",
"The phrase \"Anyone for tennis?\" (also given as \"Tennis, anyone?\") is an English language idiom primarily of the 20th century. The phrase is used to invoke a stereotype of shallow, leisured, upper-class toffs (tennis was, particularly before the widespread advent of public courts in the later 20th century, seen as a posh game for the rich, with courts popular at country clubs and private estates). It's a stereotypical entrance or exit line given to a young man of this class in a superficial drawing-room comedy.\n\nA close paraphase of the saying, was used in George Bernard Shaw's 1914 drawing-room comedy Misalliance, in which Johnny Tarleton asks \"Anybody on for a game of tennis?\" (An 1891 story in the satirical magazine Punch put a generally similar notion in the mouth of a similar type of character: \"I’m going to see if there’s anyone on the tennis-court, and get a game if I can. Ta-ta!\".)\n\n\"Anyone for tennis?\" is particularly associated with the early career of Hollywood star Humphrey Bogart, and he is cited as the first person to use the phrase on stage. At the start of his career, in the 1920s and early 1930s, Bogart appeared in many Broadway plays in what Jeffrey Meyers characterized as \"charming and fatuous roles – in [one of] which he is supposed to have said 'Tennis, anyone?'\".\n\nIf Bogart ever did speak the line, it would have presumably been in the 1925 play Hell's Bells, set at the Tanglewood Lodge in New Dauville, Connecticut. Bogart claimed that his line in the play was \"It's forty-love outside. Anyone care to watch?\", and that indeed is what is printed in the script. However, according to Darwin Porter, director John Hayden crossed out that line and replaced it with \"Tennis anyone?\" before opening night. And several observers have asserted that he did say it, reportedly including Louella Parsons and Richard Watts Jr. Erskine Johnson, in a 1948 interview, reports Bogart as saying \"I used to play juveniles on Broadway and came bouncing into drawing rooms with a tennis racket under my arm and the line: 'Tennis anybody?' It was a stage trick to get some of the characters off the set so the plot could continue.\" But Bogart's usual stance was denial of using that precise phrase (\"The lines I had were corny enough, but I swear to you, never once did I have to say 'Tennis, anyone?'\"), although averring that it did characterize generally some of his early roles.\n\nThe phrase continued to drift through media in the 20th century and, to a diminished extent, into the 21st, often at random or just because tennis generally is the subject, rather than specifically to invoke or mock vapid toffs. It appears in the lyric of the \"Beautiful Girl Montage\" in the classic 1952 musical movie Singin' in the Rain,, in the Daffy Duck cartoons Rabbit Fire, Drip-Along Daffy and The Ducksters (1950-1951),, and in the lyric and title of the 1968 song \"Anyone for Tennis\" by the British rock band Cream, which was the theme song of the film The Savage Seven. William Holden's shallow rich playboy character jokes \"tennis, anyone?\" when flirting with Joan Vohs's in the 1954 film Sabrina (in which Bogart plays another character). The television series Anyone for Tennyson? (1976–1978) riffs on the name, as does the 1981 stage play Anyone for Denis? \"Anyone for Tennis\" is the title of the B-side instrumental for Men at Work's 1981 single Who Can It Be Now?. And so forth.\n\nThe phrase also occurs in Monty Python's spoof sketch Sam Peckinpah's \"Salad Days\".\n\nReferences \n\nEnglish phrases\nTennis culture\nQuotations from literature\nMetaphors referring to sport"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909",
"Was the team successful after he bought it?",
"That season, he had a 29-16 record.",
"Did he own the team for the rest of his life?",
"McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912.",
"Did he sell in 1912?",
"McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League",
"What did he do after selling?",
"He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager,",
"Did he play for anyone else?",
"He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914."
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 8 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article aside from Joe McGinnity playing for the tigers and owning the Newark Indians? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | 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"
] |
[
"Joe McGinnity",
"Later career",
"What did McGinnity do later in life?",
"McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000",
"When did he make the purchase?",
"in 1909",
"Was the team successful after he bought it?",
"That season, he had a 29-16 record.",
"Did he own the team for the rest of his life?",
"McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912.",
"Did he sell in 1912?",
"McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League",
"What did he do after selling?",
"He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager,",
"Did he play for anyone else?",
"He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians."
] | C_0b8866e48d8842a7a35bfce3abf16bbe_0 | When did he retire? | 9 | When did Joe McGinnity retire? | Joe McGinnity | McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($1,361,852 in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29-16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($215,548 in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($1,267,931 in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914. McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team. McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and Springfield Senators of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season. CANNOTANSWER | He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day. | Joseph Jerome McGinnity (March 20, 1871 – November 14, 1929) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the late 19th and early 20th century. McGinnity played in MLB for ten years, pitching for the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles (1899) and Brooklyn Superbas (1900), before jumping to the American League (AL) to play for the Baltimore Orioles (AL) (1901–1902). He returned to the NL with the New York Giants (1902–1908). McGinnity continued to pitch in the minor leagues, eventually retiring from baseball for good at the age of 54.
In MLB, he won 246 games with a 2.66 earned run average (ERA). He had seven 20-win seasons and two 30-win seasons. Including his time in the minor leagues, McGinnity won close to 500 games as a professional ballplayer. He led MLB in wins five times (1899, 1900, 1903, 1904, and 1906) and ERA once (1904). With the Giants, he won the 1905 World Series. His teams also won NL pennants in 1900 and 1904.
McGinnity was nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in an iron foundry during the baseball offseasons. His nickname came to convey his longevity and durability, as he routinely pitched in both games of doubleheaders. He set NL records for complete games (48) and innings pitched (434) in a single season, which still stand (and with modern MLB practices which limit pitchers' innings, are considered effectively unbreakable). McGinnity is considered one of the better players in the history of the New York Giants. The Veterans Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
Early life
McGinnity's father, Peter, was born in Dublin, Ireland. His last name was McGinity before he came to United States. He changed it by adding an "n" after he emigrated to the United States in 1861. Peter worked in coal mines and on the farm owned by John and Rebecca Denning, and they accepted him, allowing him to move in with them in their Henry County farm. John and Rebecca moved to Oregon, leaving the homestead in the hands of Peter and their daughter, Hannah. The two married in August 1865, three months before the birth of their first son, William. Their second son, Peter, was born in 1869, and Joe was born in 1871. The McGinnitys had four more children.
Joe received little formal schooling. Due to the transient lifestyle of coal miners, his family moved frequently during his childhood. The McGinnitys moved to Gallatin County in 1878. Two days after the birth of their seventh child, Peter died in an accident. At the age of eight, Joe and his older brothers went to work in the mines to support their family. In 1880, the family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where Joe and his brothers worked for the Springfield Coal Company. They moved to Decatur, Illinois less than six months later, continuing to mine coal, while their mother cleaned houses.
Baseball career
Early career
While living in Decatur, McGinnity began playing baseball with other coal miners in their leisure time. The owner of the Decatur Coal Company founded the Decatur Baseball Association in 1886. An outfielder, McGinnity substituted for his team's pitcher in an 1888 game, which he won. He continued to pitch from that point on. He pitched for semi-professional teams based in Decatur in 1888 and 1889. His family headed west, stopping in the Indian Territory on their way to Montana, where Hannah's sister struck gold in their coal mine. McGinnity and his brothers worked in a coal mine in Krebs. There, he met his future wife, Mary Redpath, the oldest daughter of a fellow coal miner. McGinnity also played baseball for the local team. He increased baseball's popularity in the area, and was later referred to as "the father of Oklahoma baseball" by a sportswriter for The Oklahoman, as he organized, managed, and pitched for teams in Krebs. One of these teams began traveling to other towns along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to play against their local teams. He also pitched for teams in neighboring towns.
John McCloskey, the manager of the minor league baseball Montgomery Colts of the Class-B Southern League, heard about McGinnity's pitching. McCloskey signed McGinnity, who made his professional debut with the Colts in 1893. McCloskey habitually baited umpires during games, a trait which McGinnity learned. The league folded as a result of financial troubles related to the Panic of 1893. Jimmie Manning, manager of the Southern League franchise in Savannah, Georgia, became manager of the Kansas City Blues of the Class-A Western League for the 1894 season, and signed McGinnity to pitch for the Blues. Combined for Montgomery and Kansas City, McGinnity had a 21–29 win–loss record, while walking more batters than he could strikeout, and allowing more than a hit per inning pitched. According to a Western League umpire, catcher Tim Donahue tipped McGinnity's pitches to opposing batters due to a personal feud. As McGinnity continued to struggle for Kansas City, he requested his release in June.
McGinnity moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked as a coal miner, bartender, and operated a saloon. McGinnity also pitched locally for semi-professional teams in Springfield and Decatur, receiving a salary between $1 to $3 (between $ to $ in current dollar terms) for each game. During this time, McGinnity developed a sidearm pitch he nicknamed "Old Sal", described as a "slow curve", which became a feature of his later success. He also improved his fielding, as opponents attempted to bunt "Old Sal".
While pitching for a semi-professional team, McGinnity defeated the National League's (NL) Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game after he had already defeated a team from Chatham, Illinois earlier in the day. Pat Wright, who managed Springfield's semi-professional team, was named manager of the Peoria Distillers of the Class-B Western Association, and he signed McGinnity to Peoria for the 1898 season, marking his return to professional baseball. Armed with "Old Sal", McGinnity compiled a 9–4 record for Peoria, allowing only 118 hits and 60 walks while striking out 74 batters in 142 innings. He pitched a complete 21-inning game, believed to be the second longest professional baseball game to date. With low attendance and the distraction of the Spanish–American War, the Western Association folded in August.
Major League Baseball
Former Brooklyn Grooms player George Pinkney, who lived in Peoria during his retirement, saw McGinnity pitch, and contacted Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets to recommend he sign McGinnity. He signed McGinnity in the spring of 1899 for $150 a month ($ in current dollar terms). The syndicate that owned Brooklyn also owned the Baltimore Orioles.
With the ownership consolidation, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon, who received an ownership stake in the clubs, moved from Baltimore to Brooklyn and assigned many of his best players to Brooklyn, including Joe Kelley, Dan McGann, Hughie Jennings and Willie Keeler. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to the Orioles for the 1899 season after seeing his unorthodox pitching delivery and slow pitching speed. With the Orioles, McGinnity played with John McGraw, who succeeded Hanlon as player-manager, and Wilbert Robinson, who caught McGinnity. McGraw and Robinson had refused to relocate to Brooklyn due to their investment in a Baltimore restaurant. The two imparted their aggressive style of play to McGinnity. In his first year in the NL, McGinnity had a 28–16 record. His 28 wins led the NL, while he ranked second with 48 games, third with a 2.68 earned run average (ERA), and fourth with innings pitched.
After the 1899 season, the NL voted to contract four teams, which included the Orioles. Hanlon assigned McGinnity to Brooklyn, now known as the "Superbas". McGinnity posted a 28–8 record for Brooklyn in the 1900 season. His 28 wins and 343 innings pitched led the league, as the Dodgers won the NL pennant. McGinnity also pitched two complete games in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, as the Superbas defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates. Rather than draw straws to decide who would keep the trophy, the team voted to award it to McGinnity.
With the formation of the American League (AL) as a competitor to the NL, and rumors that the AL's Detroit Tigers were interested in McGinnity, Brooklyn offered McGinnity a $5,000 contract ($ in current dollar terms) to stay with Brooklyn. McGinnity considered retiring from baseball, but ultimately jumped to the AL, signing with the Baltimore Orioles of the AL before the 1901 season. He received a salary of $2,800 ($ in current dollar terms), choosing less money in an upstart league for the chance to be reunited with McGraw, who was player-manager and part-owner of the Orioles.
Fighting continued to erupt in games McGraw managed. During a brawl that erupted during a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 21, 1901, McGinnity spat on umpire Tom Connolly. McGinnity was arrested for the incident and permanently suspended by AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted there to be no fighting in AL games. Johnson later cut the suspension down to 12 days after McGinnity apologized. McGinnity compiled a 26–20 record for the 1901 Orioles, and his 48 games, 39 complete games, and 382 innings pitched led the AL.
McGinnity began the 1902 season with the Orioles. However, the franchise began to fall into significant debt. Joe Kelley, star player for the Orioles and son-in-law of part-owner John Mahon, reported that the team owed as much as $12,000 ($ in current dollar terms). Unable to afford that debt, Mahon purchased shares of the team from Kelley and player-manager John McGraw. With this, Mahon became the majority shareholder. On July 17, 1902, Mahon sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. That day, Freedman and Brush released McGinnity, McGraw, Kelley, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. McGinnity attempted to contact Johnson that night, offering to stay with the Orioles if he could receive Johnson's personal assurance that he was welcome to stay. McGinnity did not hear back from Johnson, who had left his phone off the hook that night to avoid being contacted, and joined his teammates with the Giants.
With the Giants for the 1903 season, McGinnity won 31 games. He also set MLB records with 48 games started and 434 innings pitched, which remain NL records today. Jack Chesbro, pitching for the New York Highlanders of the American League during the 1904 season, set the current MLB records with 55 games started and innings. In 1903, McGinnity started both games of a doubleheader on numerous occasions. He performed this feat three times in a single month, winning all six games. On the final instance, The New York Times reported "he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary". He pitched over 100 innings in the month of August. Wins by McGinnity and fellow pitcher Christy Mathewson accounted for 73% of the Giants' winning games in 1903, setting an MLB record for a pitching tandem. After the season, McGinnity and some of his teammates threatened to quit the Giants, accusing Brush, now the Giants owner, of going back on a promise to pay the team a monetary bonus for having finished among the top three teams in the NL, as well as a share of the gate receipts from exhibition games, for which they were paid $56.35 ($ in current dollar terms), though Brush allegedly had made over $200,000 ($ in current dollar terms). McGinnity claimed that he would pitch in the California League, as he had received a salary offer for "$1,000 ($ in current dollar terms) more than [he] got in New York". Jack Warner eventually joined McGinnity in publicly threatening to quit.
McGinnity set an MLB record during the 1904 season, recording his tenth win in 21 team games on May 21, the fewest team games for a pitcher to reach the mark. In 1904, McGinnity had a 35–8 record, leading the NL in games (51), innings pitched (408), shutouts (9), saves (5), and his career-best 1.61 ERA. With the Giants competing for the pennant, McGinnity again won both games in a doubleheader three times in a matter of weeks. Aided by McGinnity, the Giants again won the NL pennant. However, they did not compete in the 1904 World Series as Brush and McGraw refused to face the AL champion Boston Pilgrims, following their altercations with Johnson. After the 1904 season, McGinnity attempted to hold out from the Giants when Brush refused to allow McGinnity to play winter baseball with a team in the Southern United States.
McGinnity won 21 games in the 1905 season, as the Giants won the NL pennant. This year, the Giants participated in the 1905 World Series, against the AL champion Philadelphia Athletics. McGinnity started Games Two and Four of the five game series against the Athletics, winning one and losing one, while Mathewson pitched and won the other three. All five games, including the game McGinnity lost to Chief Bender, were shutouts. In 1906, McGinnity again led the NL in wins, with 27. This came in spite of a suspension McGinnity served for fighting Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, which NL president Harry Pulliam described as "attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse." The Mayor of Pittsburgh, who attended the game, insisted that McGinnity be arrested.
In the 1907 season, McGinnity finished with an 18–18 record with a 3.16 ERA, allowing more than a hit per inning for the first time since the 1901 season. He missed the beginning of the 1908 season with a severe fever. In June 1908, Brush put McGinnity on waivers, hoping another owner would relieve him of McGinnity's $5,000 salary ($ in current dollar terms). He tried to waive McGinnity again in August, but both times McGinnity went unclaimed. Despite this, McGinnity reverted to his old form: from August 22 through the end of the season, McGinnity had an 11–7 record, five shutouts, a 2.27 ERA, and an NL-leading five saves. The Giants released McGinnity on February 27, 1909, when McGinnity decided to pay for his own release.
Later career
McGinnity purchased the Newark Indians of the Class-A Eastern League (EL) for $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) in 1909 from Frank J. Farrell. The press reported that McGinnity would operate the team as a farm team of the Giants, though he denied these reports. When McGinnity could not retain manager Harry Wolverton, he stepped in as player-manager for the Indians. That season, he had a 29–16 record. His 422 innings pitched and 11 shutouts set EL single-season records. He also won both games of doubleheaders on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912.
McGinnity played for and managed the Indians through 1912. The Indians finished second in the EL in 1909 and 1910. McGinnity sold his interests in the Indians to Ebbets and Ed McKeever and purchased the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Northwestern League for $8,500 ($ in current dollar terms), spending another $50,000 ($ in current dollar terms) on the franchise in renovating the stadium. He served as player-manager of the Tigers at the start of the 1913 season, but stepped down as manager, hiring Russ Hall to serve as manager in June. McGinnity sold stock in the team in 1915 in order to afford operating expenses. He also briefly played for the Venice Tigers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1914.
McGinnity sold the Tigers and purchased the Butte Miners of the Northwestern League in 1916, serving as player-manager and bringing with him several players from Tacoma. In June 1917, he sold his stock in the team and secured his release. He played for the Great Falls Electrics of the Northwestern League for the remainder of the 1917 season. He later became the manager of the A. E. Staley factory baseball team.
McGinnity served as player-manager of the Danville Veterans of the Class-B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in the 1922 season and Dubuque Climbers of the Class-D Mississippi Valley League during the 1923 season. With Dubuque, McGinnity won 15 games at age 52. One of those wins was a shutout, pitched in a record one hour and seven minutes. Two years later, he returned to play for Dubuque and the Springfield Senators of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League during the 1925 season. He pitched in his final professional game on July 28, 1925, after participating in an old-timers game earlier in the day.
McGinnity joined the coaching staff of former teammate Wilbert Robinson, along with Kelley, for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1926 MLB season. McGinnity and Kelley were not retained after the season.
Personal life
McGinnity acquired his nickname, "Iron Man", before his doubleheader pitching became widely discussed. According to Lee Allen in The National League Story (1961), a reporter asked McGinnity, while he was still a minor league pitcher, what he did in between seasons. "I'm an iron man", he answered. "I work in a foundry." McGinnity's wife's family operated an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, where McGinnity worked in the offseasons.
Because of his nickname and connection to the foundry, John McGraw named McGinnity the starter for the Giants' March 23, 1904 exhibition game against the Southern Association's Birmingham Iron Men which was scheduled to raise funds for the Vulcan statue then being cast for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that summer in St. Louis, Missouri. At his own request, McGinnity was allowed to visit the downtown foundry and personally pour some of the iron into the moulds for the statue.
While working with Williams College's baseball team in 1929, McGinnity became ill. He had surgery to remove tumors from his bladder, and was said to be in critical condition. After the surgery, he was quoted as saying "it's the ninth inning, and I guess they're going to get me out." He died November 14, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, at the home of his daughter. He was interred in McAlester.
Legacy
McGinnity finished his MLB career with 246 career wins, seven 20-win seasons, and two 30-win seasons. He had nearly 500 professional wins including his years in the minor leagues. McGinnity set a career record in batters hit by pitch with 152. He revolutionized the fielding of the pitching position, by attempting to make force outs at any base, instead of throwing the ball only to first base.
After his death, McGinnity was eulogized as a "hard player" and "a fighter with brains" who hated to lose. Jennings described him as an even better fielder than he was a pitcher. McGraw said that McGinnity was "the hardest working pitcher I ever had on my ballcub". Connie Mack called him a "magician".
After failing to receive the necessary votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America for entry in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on seven occasions, McGinnity was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1946. He was also inducted into the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.
In a 1976 article in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter", consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Though Stein chose McGinnity as the right-handed pitcher for the Irish team, the team was omitted from the article due to space limitations. The Irish team was included in The Book of Lists, published the following year. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included McGinnity in their 1981 book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. The Chicago Tribune included McGinnity in its all-time Illinois team in 1990. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked McGinnity as the 41st greatest pitcher of all time.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual saves leaders
References
Bibliography
Brown Jr. Charles William Denning McGinnity Family History, Chicago, Illinois, And is mentioned several time in the book Iron Man McGinnity: A Baseball Biography. McFarland & Company. .
In-line citations
External links
1871 births
1929 deaths
People from Henry County, Illinois
American people of Irish descent
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Baltimore Orioles (NL) players
Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players
Brooklyn Superbas players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Illinois
National League ERA champions
National League wins champions
Brooklyn Dodgers coaches
Newark Indians players
Tacoma Tigers players
Venice Tigers players
Danville Veterans players
Springfield Senators players
Baseball player-managers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Vancouver Beavers players | true | [
"Øyvind Gjerde (born 18 March 1977) is a Norwegian former footballer who played for Molde. He has previously played for the clubs Åndalsnes, Lillestrøm and Aalesund.\n\nAfter the 2010 season, when he did not get a new contract with Molde after 7 years in the club, Gjerde announced that he would most likely retire.\n\nReferences \n\n1977 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Møre og Romsdal\nNorwegian footballers\nEliteserien players\nNorwegian First Division players\nAalesunds FK players\nLillestrøm SK players\nMolde FK players\n\nAssociation football defenders",
"Max Mnkandla is the President of the Zimbabwe Liberators' Peace Initiative. He fought for the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) in the Rhodesian Bush War.\n\nHis father, Siqanywana, died in the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s. When Information Minister Nathan Shamuyarira defended the massacres in October 2006, Mnkandla said Shamuyarira's comments show he is \"not only suffering from 1880s hangover — the feeling that the Ndebele also did the same to the Shonas — it also shows that Shamuyarira is now old and should retire.\"\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nZimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army personnel\nZimbabwean politicians"
] |
[
"Elizabeth Blackwell",
"Early adulthood"
] | C_f057bbeade334d7db53c3c5992e12d0c_1 | What job did she have? | 1 | What job did Elizabeth Blackwell have? | Elizabeth Blackwell | The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods - it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy. Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils. Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840. In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $400 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life. CANNOTANSWER | Blackwell began teaching private pupils. | Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine, especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool for studying the anatomy enabling vision. Therefore, she became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, except Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, in which the male students voted for Blackwell's acceptance. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.
Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal, shortly after she graduated, was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic and social justice. This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.
Blackwell also founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell in 1857, and began giving lectures to female audiences on the importance of educating girls. She also played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses.
Early life
Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, in Bristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was a sugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell. She had two older siblings, Anna and Marian, and would eventually have six younger siblings: Samuel (married Antoinette Brown), Henry (married Lucy Stone), Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree), Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them.
In 1832, the family emigrated from Bristol, England, to New York because Samuel Blackwell had lost their most profitable sugar refinery to a fire. In New York, Elizabeth's father became active in abolitionist work. Therefore, their dinnertime discussions often surrounded issues such as women's rights, slavery, and child labor. These liberal discussions reflected Hannah and Samuel's attitudes toward child rearing. For example, rather than beating the children for bad behavior, Barbara Blackwell recorded their trespasses in a black book. If the offenses accumulated, the children would be exiled to the attic during dinner. Samuel Blackwell was similarly liberal in his attitude towards the education of his children. Samuel Blackwell was a Congregationalist and exerted a strong influence over the religious and academic education of his children. He believed that each child, including his girls, should be given the opportunity for unlimited development of their talents and gifts. This perspective was rare during that time, as most people believed that the woman's place was in the home or as a schoolteacher. Blackwell had not only a governess, but private tutors to supplement her intellectual development. As a result, she was rather socially isolated from all but her family as she grew up.
The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio a few years later. When Blackwell was 17, her father died, leaving the family with little money.
Early adulthood
The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods – it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy.
Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils.
Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840.
In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life.
Education
Pursuit of medical education
Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy in Asheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving up the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who happened to have been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.
Dickson's school closed down soon after, and Blackwell moved to the residence of Reverend Dickson's brother, Samuel Henry Dickson, a prominent Charleston physician. She started teaching in 1846 at a boarding school in Charleston run by a Mrs. Du Pré. With the help of Reverend Dickson's brother, Blackwell inquired into the possibility of medical study via letters, with no favorable responses. In 1847, Blackwell left Charleston for Philadelphia and New York, with the aim of personally investigating the opportunities for medical study. Blackwell's greatest wish was to be accepted into one of the Philadelphia medical schools.
Upon reaching Philadelphia, Blackwell boarded with Dr. William Elder and studied anatomy privately with Dr. Jonathan M. Allen as she attempted to get her foot in the door at any medical school in Philadelphia. She was met with resistance almost everywhere. Most physicians recommended that she either go to Paris to study or take up a disguise as a man to study medicine. The main reasons offered for her rejection were that (1) she was a woman and therefore intellectually inferior, and (2) she might actually prove equal to the task, prove to be competition, and that she could not expect them to "furnish [her] with a stick to break our heads with". Out of desperation, she applied to twelve "country schools".
Medical education in the United States
In October 1847, Blackwell was accepted as a medical student by Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, located in Syracuse, New York. The dean and faculty, usually responsible for evaluating an applicant for matriculation, were not able to make a decision due to the special nature of Blackwell's case. They put the issue up to a vote by the 150 male students of the class with the stipulation that if one student objected, Blackwell would be turned away. The young men voted unanimously to accept her.
When Blackwell arrived at the college, she was rather nervous. Nothing was familiar – the surroundings, the students, and the faculty. She did not even know where to get her books. However, she soon found herself at home in medical school. While she was at school, she was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends alike, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Dr. Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ran Blockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still would walk out and refuse to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience but was appalled by the syphilitic ward and those afflicted with typhus. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work.
On 23 January 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Dr. Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.
Medical education in Europe
In April 1849, Blackwell made the decision to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then headed to Paris. Her experience there was similar to her experience in America; she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital, under the condition that she would be treated as a student midwife, not a physician. She made the acquaintance of Hippolyte Blot, a young resident physician at La Maternité. She gained much medical experience through his mentoring and training. By the end of the year, Paul Dubois, the foremost obstetrician in his day, had voiced his opinion that she would make the best obstetrician in the United States, male or female.
On 4 November 1849, when Blackwell was treating an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally squirted some contaminated fluid into her own eye and contracted the infection. She lost sight in her left eye, requiring its surgical extraction and leaving her without hope of becoming a surgeon. After a period of recovery, she enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850. She regularly attended James Paget's lectures. She made a positive impression there, although she did meet opposition when she tried to observe the wards.
Feeling that the prejudice against women in medicine was not as strong there, Blackwell returned to New York City in 1851 with the hope of establishing her own practice.
Career
Medical career in the United States
Stateside, Blackwell was faced with adversity, but did manage to get some media support from entities such as the New-York Tribune. She had very few patients, a situation she attributed to the stigma of women doctors as abortionists. In 1852, she began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.
In 1853, Blackwell established a small dispensary near Tompkins Square. She also took Marie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, under her wing, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.
Civil War efforts
When the American Civil War broke out, the Blackwell sisters aided in nursing efforts. Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even went so far as to say she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with the Woman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC. Still, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.
Medical career at home and abroad
Blackwell made several trips back to Britain to raise funds and to try to establish a parallel infirmary project there. In 1858, under a clause in the Medical Act of 1858 that recognised doctors with foreign degrees practicing in Britain before 1858, she was able to become the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register (1 January 1859). She also became a mentor to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project fell through, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.
At this point, a rift occurred between Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell. Both were extremely headstrong, and a power struggle over the management of the infirmary and medical college ensued. Elizabeth, feeling slightly alienated by the United States women's medical movement, left for Britain to try to establish medical education for women there. In July 1869, she sailed for Britain.
In 1874, Blackwell established a women's medical school in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a student at the New York Infirmary years earlier. Blackwell had doubts about Jex-Blake and thought that she was dangerous, belligerent, and tactless. Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as the London School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam of Apothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use of vivisections in the laboratory of the school.
After the establishment of the school, Blackwell lost much of her authority to Jex-Blake and was elected as a lecturer in midwifery. She resigned this position in 1877, officially retiring from her medical career.
While Blackwell viewed medicine as a means for social and moral reform, her student Mary Putnam Jacobi focused on curing disease. At a deeper level of disagreement, Blackwell felt that women would succeed in medicine because of their humane female values, but Jacobi believed that women should participate as the equals of men in all medical specialties.
Time in Europe – social and moral reform
After leaving for Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded the National Health Society in 1871. She perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities – the income from her American investments supported her. She was rather occupied with her social status, and her friend, Barbara Bodichon helped introduce Blackwell into her circles. She traveled across Europe many times during these years, in England, France, Wales, Switzerland and Italy.
Her greatest period of reform activity was after her retirement from the medical profession, from 1880 to 1895. Blackwell was interested in a great number of reform movements – mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but also preventive medicine, sanitation, eugenics, family planning, women's rights, associationism, Christian socialism, medical ethics and antivivisection – none of which ever came to real fruition. She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty, elusive and ultimately unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities: Starnthwaite and Hadleigh in the 1880s.
She believed that the Christian morality ought to play as large a role as scientific inquiry in medicine and that medical schools ought to instruct students in this basic truth. She also was antimaterialist and did not believe in vivisections. She did not see the value of inoculation and thought it dangerous. She believed that bacteria were not the only important cause of disease and felt their importance was being exaggerated.
She campaigned heavily against licentiousness, prostitution and contraceptives, arguing instead for the rhythm method. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children was an essay on prostitution and marriage arguing against the Contagious Diseases Acts. She was conservative in all senses except that she believed women to have sexual passions equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling those passions. Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed by Hatchard and Company. The proofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.
Personal life
Friends and family
Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters with Lady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends with Florence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital together. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels.
However, Blackwell had a very strong personality and was often quite acerbic in her criticism of others, especially other women. Blackwell had a falling out with Florence Nightingale after Nightingale returned from the Crimean War. Nightingale wanted Blackwell to turn her focus to training nurses and could not see the legitimacy of training female physicians. After that, Blackwell's comments upon Florence Nightingale's publications were often highly critical. She was also highly critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices". Blackwell also did not get along well with her more stubborn sisters Anna and Emily, or with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role.
Kitty Barry
In 1856, when Blackwell was establishing the New York Infirmary, she adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan from the House of Refuge on Randall's Island. Diary entries at the time show that she adopted Barry half out of loneliness and a feeling of obligation, and half out of a utilitarian need for domestic help. Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter.
Blackwell did provide for Barry's education. She even instructed Barry in gymnastics as a trial for the theories outlined in her publication, The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls. However, Blackwell never permitted Barry to develop her own interests. She made no effort to introduce Barry to young men or women her own age. Barry herself was rather shy, awkward and self-conscious about her slight deafness. Barry followed Blackwell during her many trans-Atlantic moves, during her furious house hunt between 1874 and 1875, during which they moved six times, and finally to Blackwell's final home, Rock House, a small house off Exmouth Place in Hastings, Sussex, in 1879.
Barry stayed with Blackwell all her life. After Blackwell's death, Barry stayed at Rock House, and then moved to Kilmun in Argyllshire, Scotland, where Blackwell was buried in the churchyard of St Munn's Parish Church. In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.
Private life
None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence. When commenting on the young men trying to court her during her time in Kentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do." Even during her time at Geneva Medical College, she rejected advances from a few suitors.
There was one slight controversy, however, in Blackwell's life related to her relationship with Alfred Sachs, a 26-year-old man from Virginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was in love with Sachs and was mildly jealous of Blackwell. Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Alfred Sachs after the publication of her book.
Last years and death
Blackwell, in her later years, was still relatively active. In 1895, she published her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It was not very successful, selling fewer than 500 copies. After this publication, Blackwell slowly relinquished her public reform presence, and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906 and took her first and last car ride. Blackwell's old age was beginning to limit her activities.
In 1907, while holidaying in Kilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled. On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.
Legacy
The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.
Influence
After Blackwell graduated in 1849, her thesis on typhoid fever was published in the Buffalo Medical Journal.
In 1857, Blackwell opened the New York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women. In the audience at one of her lectures in England, was a woman named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who later became the first woman doctor in England, in 1865.
In 1874, Blackwell worked together with Florence Nightingale, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell, and Thomas Henry Huxley to create the first medical school for women in England, London School of Medicine for Women, for which she acted as the Chair of Hygiene.
Blackwell settled in England in the 1870s and continued working on expanding the profession of medicine for women, influencing as many as 476 women to become registered medical professionals in England alone. Up until her death, Blackwell worked in an active practice in Hastings, England, and continued to lecture at the School of Medicine for Women.
Honors
Two institutions honour Elizabeth Blackwell as an alumna:
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the current name of Geneva College, the founding institution of Geneva Medical College.
The State University of New York Upstate Medical University, which was acquired in 1950 by the State University of New York.
Since 1949, the American Medical Women's Association has awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal annually to a female physician. Hobart and William Smith Colleges awards an annual Elizabeth Blackwell Award to women who have demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind."
In 1973, Elizabeth Blackwell was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.
In 2013 the University of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.
On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday championed by Physician Moms Group [www.Mypmg.com] after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother. The National Holiday pays tribute to Dr. Blackwell of the role she has played influencing women physicians in present-day and their strive for equity and equality.
On 3 February 2018, Google honoured her as a doodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.
In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell founded. For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges erected a statue on their campus honoring Blackwell.
A 2021 book by Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, chronicles the life story of Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell.
Works
1849 The Causes and Treatment of Typhus, or Shipfever (thesis)
1852 The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (brochure, compilation of lecture series) pub. by George Putnam
1856 An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women
1860 Medicine as a Profession for Women (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)
1864 Address on the Medical Education of Women
1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
1881 "Medicine and Morality" (published in Modern Review)
1887 Purchase of Women: the Great Economic Blunder
1871 The Religion of Health (compilation of lecture series to the Sunday Lecture Society, three editions)
1883 Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil, as shown by English Parliamentary Evidence
1888 On the Decay of Municipal Representative Government – A Chapter of Personal Experience (Moral Reform League)
1890 The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine
1891 Erroneous Method in Medical Education etc. (Women's Printing Society)
1892 Why Hygienic Congresses Fail
1895 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (Longmans, reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1977)
1898 Scientific Method in Biology
1902 Essays in Medical Sociology, 2 vols (Ernest Bell)
See also
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain
Emily Blackwell, Sister Emily Blackwell, physician
James Barry, possibly the first female bodied doctor (assigned female at birth but living as a man)
List of first female physicians by country
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, first African American female physician
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
References
Further reading
Baker, Rachel (1944). The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York, OCLC 848388
Howard, Carol (2018). "Elizabeth Blackwell" Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography.
Morantz, Regina. "Feminism, Professionalism and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell," American Quarterly (1982) 34:461–478. in JSTOR
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. "Feminist theory and historical practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell," History & Theory (1992) 31#4 pp 51–69 in JSTOR
Ross, Ishbel (1944). Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970). Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston, OCLC 56257
External links
Elizabeth Blackwell Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections
Women in Science
An online history at the National Institutes of Health, including copies of historical documents
An online biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
Biography from the National Institute of Health
Elizabeth Blackwell at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Elizabeth Blackwell Resources Available in Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Chronological Bibliography of Selected Scholarly Works by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell at winningthevote.org
Papers, 1835–1960. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
Finding aid to Elizabeth Blackwell letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1821 births
1910 deaths
American abolitionists
American feminists
19th-century American women physicians
19th-century American physicians
American women's rights activists
Anti-contraception activists
Anti-vivisectionists
Blackwell family
Burials at Kilmun Parish Church
Christian abolitionists
English emigrants to the United States
Geneva Medical College alumni
Medical doctors from Bristol
People from Hastings
Physicians from Cincinnati
Physicians from New York City
Sex educators
American socialist feminists
Women in the American Civil War
Women medical researchers
Women of the Victorian era
Physicians from Rochester, New York
Anti-prostitution activists
American Christian socialists
American eugenicists
Education activists
Female Christian socialists
British socialist feminists | true | [
"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",
"Greasley v Cooke [1980] 3 All ER 710 is an English land law case concerning proprietary estoppel.\n\nFacts\nKenneth and Hedley Greasley owned a house on 32 George Street, Riddings in Derbyshire. Doris Cooke moved in in 1938 as a maid for Hedley, and became Kenneth’s partner, and both had assured her she would have a 'home for life'. When Kenneth died, he left nothing. Cooke stayed there after 1975, and had received no payment since 1948. The new owners of the house wanted to remove her. She did not look for another job, and stayed in the house looking after Kenneth and Clarice. Cooke claimed proprietary estoppel, and to stay in the house. The claimants did not show for the proceedings.\n\nJudgment\nLord Denning MR held that Ms Cooke did not have to prove reliance, and would assume she had acted to her detriment. His decision went as follows.\n\n{{Cquote|The first point is on the burden of proof. Mr. Weeks referred us to many cases, such as Reynell v. Sprye (1852) 1 De G. M. & G. 660, 708; Smith v. Chadwick (1882) 20 Ch.D. 27 , 44 and Brikom Investments Ltd. v. Carr [1979] Q.B. 467 , 482–483 where I said that when a person makes a representation intending that another should act on it:\n\n“It is no answer for the maker to say: ‘You would have gone on with the transaction anyway.’ That must be mere speculation. No one can be sure what he would, or would not, have done in a hypothetical state of affairs which never took place. … Once it is shown that a representation was calculated to influence the judgment of a reasonable man, the presumption is that he was so influenced.”\n\nSo here. These statements to Miss Cooke were calculated to influence her — so as to put her mind at rest — so that she should not worry about being turned out. No one can say what she would have done if Kenneth and Hedley had not made those statements. It is quite possible that she would have said to herself:\n\n“I am not married to Kenneth. I am on my own. What will happen to me if anything happens to him? I had better look out for another job now: rather than stay here where I have no security.”\n\nSo, instead of looking for another job, she stayed on in the house looking after Kenneth and Clarice. There is a presumption that she did so, relying on the assurances given to her by Kenneth and Hedley. The burden is not on her, but on them, to prove that she did not rely on their assurances. They did not prove it, nor did their representatives. So she is presumed to have relied on them. So on the burden of proof it seems to me that the judge was in error.\n\nThe second point is about the need for some expenditure of money — some detriment — before a person can acquire any interest in a house or any right to stay in it as long as he wishes. It so happens that in many of these cases of proprietary estoppel there has been expenditure of money. But that is not a necessary element. I see that in Snell's Principles of Equity, 27th ed. (1973), p. 565, it is said: “A must have incurred expenditure or otherwise have prejudiced himself.” But I do not think that that is necessary. It is sufficient if the party, to whom the assurance is given, acts on the faith of it — in such circumstances that it would be unjust and inequitable for the party making the assurance to go back on it: see Moorgate Mercantile Co. Ltd. v. Twitchings [1976] Q.B. 225 and 'Crabb v Arun District Council [1976] Ch. 179 , 188. Applying those principles here it can be seen that the assurances given by Kenneth and Hedley to Doris Cooke — leading her to believe that she would be allowed to stay in the house as long as she wished — raised an equity in her favour. There was no need for her to prove that she acted on the faith of those assurances. It is to be presumed that she did so. There is no need for her to prove that she acted to her detriment or to her prejudice. Suffice it that she stayed on the house — looking after Kenneth and Clarice — when otherwise she might have left and got a job elsewhere. The equity having thus been raised in her favour, it is for the courts of equity to decide in what way that equity should be satisfied. In this case it should be by allowing her to stay on in the house as long as she wishes.}}\n\nSee also\n\nEnglish contract law\nEnglish land lawInwards v Baker [1965] 2 QB 29.Willmott v Barber'' (1880) 15 Ch D 96, Fry J said proprietary estoppel requires a mistake about rights, reliance, defendant has knowledge of his own right, know of the claimant's mistaken belief and have encouraged reliance\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nEnglish contract case law\nCourt of Appeal (England and Wales) cases\n1980 in British law\n1980 in case law"
] |
[
"Elizabeth Blackwell",
"Early adulthood",
"What job did she have?",
"Blackwell began teaching private pupils."
] | C_f057bbeade334d7db53c3c5992e12d0c_1 | Did she do well? | 2 | Did Elizabeth Blackwell do well? | Elizabeth Blackwell | The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods - it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy. Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils. Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840. In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $400 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life. CANNOTANSWER | She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, | Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine, especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool for studying the anatomy enabling vision. Therefore, she became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, except Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, in which the male students voted for Blackwell's acceptance. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.
Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal, shortly after she graduated, was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic and social justice. This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.
Blackwell also founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell in 1857, and began giving lectures to female audiences on the importance of educating girls. She also played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses.
Early life
Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, in Bristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was a sugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell. She had two older siblings, Anna and Marian, and would eventually have six younger siblings: Samuel (married Antoinette Brown), Henry (married Lucy Stone), Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree), Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them.
In 1832, the family emigrated from Bristol, England, to New York because Samuel Blackwell had lost their most profitable sugar refinery to a fire. In New York, Elizabeth's father became active in abolitionist work. Therefore, their dinnertime discussions often surrounded issues such as women's rights, slavery, and child labor. These liberal discussions reflected Hannah and Samuel's attitudes toward child rearing. For example, rather than beating the children for bad behavior, Barbara Blackwell recorded their trespasses in a black book. If the offenses accumulated, the children would be exiled to the attic during dinner. Samuel Blackwell was similarly liberal in his attitude towards the education of his children. Samuel Blackwell was a Congregationalist and exerted a strong influence over the religious and academic education of his children. He believed that each child, including his girls, should be given the opportunity for unlimited development of their talents and gifts. This perspective was rare during that time, as most people believed that the woman's place was in the home or as a schoolteacher. Blackwell had not only a governess, but private tutors to supplement her intellectual development. As a result, she was rather socially isolated from all but her family as she grew up.
The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio a few years later. When Blackwell was 17, her father died, leaving the family with little money.
Early adulthood
The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods – it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy.
Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils.
Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840.
In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life.
Education
Pursuit of medical education
Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy in Asheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving up the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who happened to have been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.
Dickson's school closed down soon after, and Blackwell moved to the residence of Reverend Dickson's brother, Samuel Henry Dickson, a prominent Charleston physician. She started teaching in 1846 at a boarding school in Charleston run by a Mrs. Du Pré. With the help of Reverend Dickson's brother, Blackwell inquired into the possibility of medical study via letters, with no favorable responses. In 1847, Blackwell left Charleston for Philadelphia and New York, with the aim of personally investigating the opportunities for medical study. Blackwell's greatest wish was to be accepted into one of the Philadelphia medical schools.
Upon reaching Philadelphia, Blackwell boarded with Dr. William Elder and studied anatomy privately with Dr. Jonathan M. Allen as she attempted to get her foot in the door at any medical school in Philadelphia. She was met with resistance almost everywhere. Most physicians recommended that she either go to Paris to study or take up a disguise as a man to study medicine. The main reasons offered for her rejection were that (1) she was a woman and therefore intellectually inferior, and (2) she might actually prove equal to the task, prove to be competition, and that she could not expect them to "furnish [her] with a stick to break our heads with". Out of desperation, she applied to twelve "country schools".
Medical education in the United States
In October 1847, Blackwell was accepted as a medical student by Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, located in Syracuse, New York. The dean and faculty, usually responsible for evaluating an applicant for matriculation, were not able to make a decision due to the special nature of Blackwell's case. They put the issue up to a vote by the 150 male students of the class with the stipulation that if one student objected, Blackwell would be turned away. The young men voted unanimously to accept her.
When Blackwell arrived at the college, she was rather nervous. Nothing was familiar – the surroundings, the students, and the faculty. She did not even know where to get her books. However, she soon found herself at home in medical school. While she was at school, she was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends alike, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Dr. Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ran Blockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still would walk out and refuse to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience but was appalled by the syphilitic ward and those afflicted with typhus. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work.
On 23 January 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Dr. Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.
Medical education in Europe
In April 1849, Blackwell made the decision to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then headed to Paris. Her experience there was similar to her experience in America; she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital, under the condition that she would be treated as a student midwife, not a physician. She made the acquaintance of Hippolyte Blot, a young resident physician at La Maternité. She gained much medical experience through his mentoring and training. By the end of the year, Paul Dubois, the foremost obstetrician in his day, had voiced his opinion that she would make the best obstetrician in the United States, male or female.
On 4 November 1849, when Blackwell was treating an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally squirted some contaminated fluid into her own eye and contracted the infection. She lost sight in her left eye, requiring its surgical extraction and leaving her without hope of becoming a surgeon. After a period of recovery, she enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850. She regularly attended James Paget's lectures. She made a positive impression there, although she did meet opposition when she tried to observe the wards.
Feeling that the prejudice against women in medicine was not as strong there, Blackwell returned to New York City in 1851 with the hope of establishing her own practice.
Career
Medical career in the United States
Stateside, Blackwell was faced with adversity, but did manage to get some media support from entities such as the New-York Tribune. She had very few patients, a situation she attributed to the stigma of women doctors as abortionists. In 1852, she began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.
In 1853, Blackwell established a small dispensary near Tompkins Square. She also took Marie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, under her wing, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.
Civil War efforts
When the American Civil War broke out, the Blackwell sisters aided in nursing efforts. Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even went so far as to say she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with the Woman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC. Still, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.
Medical career at home and abroad
Blackwell made several trips back to Britain to raise funds and to try to establish a parallel infirmary project there. In 1858, under a clause in the Medical Act of 1858 that recognised doctors with foreign degrees practicing in Britain before 1858, she was able to become the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register (1 January 1859). She also became a mentor to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project fell through, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.
At this point, a rift occurred between Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell. Both were extremely headstrong, and a power struggle over the management of the infirmary and medical college ensued. Elizabeth, feeling slightly alienated by the United States women's medical movement, left for Britain to try to establish medical education for women there. In July 1869, she sailed for Britain.
In 1874, Blackwell established a women's medical school in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a student at the New York Infirmary years earlier. Blackwell had doubts about Jex-Blake and thought that she was dangerous, belligerent, and tactless. Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as the London School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam of Apothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use of vivisections in the laboratory of the school.
After the establishment of the school, Blackwell lost much of her authority to Jex-Blake and was elected as a lecturer in midwifery. She resigned this position in 1877, officially retiring from her medical career.
While Blackwell viewed medicine as a means for social and moral reform, her student Mary Putnam Jacobi focused on curing disease. At a deeper level of disagreement, Blackwell felt that women would succeed in medicine because of their humane female values, but Jacobi believed that women should participate as the equals of men in all medical specialties.
Time in Europe – social and moral reform
After leaving for Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded the National Health Society in 1871. She perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities – the income from her American investments supported her. She was rather occupied with her social status, and her friend, Barbara Bodichon helped introduce Blackwell into her circles. She traveled across Europe many times during these years, in England, France, Wales, Switzerland and Italy.
Her greatest period of reform activity was after her retirement from the medical profession, from 1880 to 1895. Blackwell was interested in a great number of reform movements – mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but also preventive medicine, sanitation, eugenics, family planning, women's rights, associationism, Christian socialism, medical ethics and antivivisection – none of which ever came to real fruition. She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty, elusive and ultimately unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities: Starnthwaite and Hadleigh in the 1880s.
She believed that the Christian morality ought to play as large a role as scientific inquiry in medicine and that medical schools ought to instruct students in this basic truth. She also was antimaterialist and did not believe in vivisections. She did not see the value of inoculation and thought it dangerous. She believed that bacteria were not the only important cause of disease and felt their importance was being exaggerated.
She campaigned heavily against licentiousness, prostitution and contraceptives, arguing instead for the rhythm method. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children was an essay on prostitution and marriage arguing against the Contagious Diseases Acts. She was conservative in all senses except that she believed women to have sexual passions equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling those passions. Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed by Hatchard and Company. The proofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.
Personal life
Friends and family
Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters with Lady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends with Florence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital together. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels.
However, Blackwell had a very strong personality and was often quite acerbic in her criticism of others, especially other women. Blackwell had a falling out with Florence Nightingale after Nightingale returned from the Crimean War. Nightingale wanted Blackwell to turn her focus to training nurses and could not see the legitimacy of training female physicians. After that, Blackwell's comments upon Florence Nightingale's publications were often highly critical. She was also highly critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices". Blackwell also did not get along well with her more stubborn sisters Anna and Emily, or with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role.
Kitty Barry
In 1856, when Blackwell was establishing the New York Infirmary, she adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan from the House of Refuge on Randall's Island. Diary entries at the time show that she adopted Barry half out of loneliness and a feeling of obligation, and half out of a utilitarian need for domestic help. Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter.
Blackwell did provide for Barry's education. She even instructed Barry in gymnastics as a trial for the theories outlined in her publication, The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls. However, Blackwell never permitted Barry to develop her own interests. She made no effort to introduce Barry to young men or women her own age. Barry herself was rather shy, awkward and self-conscious about her slight deafness. Barry followed Blackwell during her many trans-Atlantic moves, during her furious house hunt between 1874 and 1875, during which they moved six times, and finally to Blackwell's final home, Rock House, a small house off Exmouth Place in Hastings, Sussex, in 1879.
Barry stayed with Blackwell all her life. After Blackwell's death, Barry stayed at Rock House, and then moved to Kilmun in Argyllshire, Scotland, where Blackwell was buried in the churchyard of St Munn's Parish Church. In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.
Private life
None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence. When commenting on the young men trying to court her during her time in Kentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do." Even during her time at Geneva Medical College, she rejected advances from a few suitors.
There was one slight controversy, however, in Blackwell's life related to her relationship with Alfred Sachs, a 26-year-old man from Virginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was in love with Sachs and was mildly jealous of Blackwell. Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Alfred Sachs after the publication of her book.
Last years and death
Blackwell, in her later years, was still relatively active. In 1895, she published her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It was not very successful, selling fewer than 500 copies. After this publication, Blackwell slowly relinquished her public reform presence, and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906 and took her first and last car ride. Blackwell's old age was beginning to limit her activities.
In 1907, while holidaying in Kilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled. On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.
Legacy
The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.
Influence
After Blackwell graduated in 1849, her thesis on typhoid fever was published in the Buffalo Medical Journal.
In 1857, Blackwell opened the New York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women. In the audience at one of her lectures in England, was a woman named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who later became the first woman doctor in England, in 1865.
In 1874, Blackwell worked together with Florence Nightingale, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell, and Thomas Henry Huxley to create the first medical school for women in England, London School of Medicine for Women, for which she acted as the Chair of Hygiene.
Blackwell settled in England in the 1870s and continued working on expanding the profession of medicine for women, influencing as many as 476 women to become registered medical professionals in England alone. Up until her death, Blackwell worked in an active practice in Hastings, England, and continued to lecture at the School of Medicine for Women.
Honors
Two institutions honour Elizabeth Blackwell as an alumna:
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the current name of Geneva College, the founding institution of Geneva Medical College.
The State University of New York Upstate Medical University, which was acquired in 1950 by the State University of New York.
Since 1949, the American Medical Women's Association has awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal annually to a female physician. Hobart and William Smith Colleges awards an annual Elizabeth Blackwell Award to women who have demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind."
In 1973, Elizabeth Blackwell was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.
In 2013 the University of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.
On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday championed by Physician Moms Group [www.Mypmg.com] after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother. The National Holiday pays tribute to Dr. Blackwell of the role she has played influencing women physicians in present-day and their strive for equity and equality.
On 3 February 2018, Google honoured her as a doodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.
In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell founded. For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges erected a statue on their campus honoring Blackwell.
A 2021 book by Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, chronicles the life story of Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell.
Works
1849 The Causes and Treatment of Typhus, or Shipfever (thesis)
1852 The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (brochure, compilation of lecture series) pub. by George Putnam
1856 An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women
1860 Medicine as a Profession for Women (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)
1864 Address on the Medical Education of Women
1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
1881 "Medicine and Morality" (published in Modern Review)
1887 Purchase of Women: the Great Economic Blunder
1871 The Religion of Health (compilation of lecture series to the Sunday Lecture Society, three editions)
1883 Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil, as shown by English Parliamentary Evidence
1888 On the Decay of Municipal Representative Government – A Chapter of Personal Experience (Moral Reform League)
1890 The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine
1891 Erroneous Method in Medical Education etc. (Women's Printing Society)
1892 Why Hygienic Congresses Fail
1895 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (Longmans, reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1977)
1898 Scientific Method in Biology
1902 Essays in Medical Sociology, 2 vols (Ernest Bell)
See also
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain
Emily Blackwell, Sister Emily Blackwell, physician
James Barry, possibly the first female bodied doctor (assigned female at birth but living as a man)
List of first female physicians by country
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, first African American female physician
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
References
Further reading
Baker, Rachel (1944). The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York, OCLC 848388
Howard, Carol (2018). "Elizabeth Blackwell" Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography.
Morantz, Regina. "Feminism, Professionalism and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell," American Quarterly (1982) 34:461–478. in JSTOR
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. "Feminist theory and historical practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell," History & Theory (1992) 31#4 pp 51–69 in JSTOR
Ross, Ishbel (1944). Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970). Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston, OCLC 56257
External links
Elizabeth Blackwell Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections
Women in Science
An online history at the National Institutes of Health, including copies of historical documents
An online biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
Biography from the National Institute of Health
Elizabeth Blackwell at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Elizabeth Blackwell Resources Available in Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Chronological Bibliography of Selected Scholarly Works by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell at winningthevote.org
Papers, 1835–1960. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
Finding aid to Elizabeth Blackwell letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1821 births
1910 deaths
American abolitionists
American feminists
19th-century American women physicians
19th-century American physicians
American women's rights activists
Anti-contraception activists
Anti-vivisectionists
Blackwell family
Burials at Kilmun Parish Church
Christian abolitionists
English emigrants to the United States
Geneva Medical College alumni
Medical doctors from Bristol
People from Hastings
Physicians from Cincinnati
Physicians from New York City
Sex educators
American socialist feminists
Women in the American Civil War
Women medical researchers
Women of the Victorian era
Physicians from Rochester, New York
Anti-prostitution activists
American Christian socialists
American eugenicists
Education activists
Female Christian socialists
British socialist feminists | true | [
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"Sonalika Prasad (born 05 October 1992), is an Indian film actress who predominantly works in Bhojpuri, Hindi films and television actress. She is a very well known personality for hosting events. She is known for her roles in television show CID (Indian TV series), Savdhaan India, Crime Petrol and films like Raajtilak & Laila Majnu.\n\nEarly life\nSonalika was born in a Prasad family on 05 October 1992. She was born and brought up in Patna, Bihar. Prasad did her schooling from st.Karen’s school ( From 1st - 6th standard) Than she changed her School and take admission in Krishna Niketan school ( From 7th - 10th) Patna, Bihar. She did her High School, Graduation ( Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in political science) and Post Graduation in mass communication From Patna women’s college. Prasad always interested to learn language and now she speaks Hindi, English, Bhojpuri.\n\nPrasad also adds, My family always wanted me to study till my post graduation. but I always had interest in fine arts Still I did Mass Communication but I used to do stuff related to vocal singing & kathak dance. I took 6 year training in vocal singing & kathak dance and all apart from my studies. I used to do plays, horse ridding, Bike & Car Driving, I did Modeling during college days, Some time i bunked my colleges lectures for my Singing and kathak training.\n\nCareer\nPrasad made her Television debut in the 2015 television shows name CID and her Film debut in the 2019 film name was Raajtilak. In 2017, Prasad did many commercial and print adds Shoots. She loved to do anchoring, hosting the events and Shows. \n\nIn 2020, She did Bhojpuri Industry Premier League (BIPL) SEASON 4 Live anchoring for dhishoom Channel. She did hosting, Game Played & dance in Roj Hoi Bhoj as celebrity participate, Dance performance in “Diwali Carnival“ and \"Chhat Pooja\" for Big Ganga Television Channel. Dance performance in “Holi\" Show for B4U Bhojpuri.\n\nIn 2021, She did acting & hosting \"Hansi ki rail chut na jaaye\" (comedy show). Lead Acting in Web series name- \"Luv Guru\" in an upcoming digital channel name :-WOW. Did a Audio music album Zindagi Jhand baa, Phir bhi ghamand baa Rap Song, Sung by Herself and Raju Singh Mahi its released By worldwide bhojpuri music company.\n\nTelevision\n\nFilmography\n\nMusic videos\n Zindagi Jhand Ba Phir Bhi Ghamand Ba\n\nWebseries\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1992 births\nLiving people\nActresses from Mumbai\nIndian film actresses\nIndian television actresses\n21st-century Indian actresses"
] |
[
"Elizabeth Blackwell",
"Early adulthood",
"What job did she have?",
"Blackwell began teaching private pupils.",
"Did she do well?",
"She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures,"
] | C_f057bbeade334d7db53c3c5992e12d0c_1 | What did that lead to? | 3 | What did Elizabeth Blackwell's work at intellectual self improvement lead to? | Elizabeth Blackwell | The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods - it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy. Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils. Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840. In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $400 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life. CANNOTANSWER | she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries | Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine, especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool for studying the anatomy enabling vision. Therefore, she became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, except Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, in which the male students voted for Blackwell's acceptance. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.
Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal, shortly after she graduated, was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic and social justice. This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.
Blackwell also founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell in 1857, and began giving lectures to female audiences on the importance of educating girls. She also played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses.
Early life
Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, in Bristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was a sugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell. She had two older siblings, Anna and Marian, and would eventually have six younger siblings: Samuel (married Antoinette Brown), Henry (married Lucy Stone), Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree), Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them.
In 1832, the family emigrated from Bristol, England, to New York because Samuel Blackwell had lost their most profitable sugar refinery to a fire. In New York, Elizabeth's father became active in abolitionist work. Therefore, their dinnertime discussions often surrounded issues such as women's rights, slavery, and child labor. These liberal discussions reflected Hannah and Samuel's attitudes toward child rearing. For example, rather than beating the children for bad behavior, Barbara Blackwell recorded their trespasses in a black book. If the offenses accumulated, the children would be exiled to the attic during dinner. Samuel Blackwell was similarly liberal in his attitude towards the education of his children. Samuel Blackwell was a Congregationalist and exerted a strong influence over the religious and academic education of his children. He believed that each child, including his girls, should be given the opportunity for unlimited development of their talents and gifts. This perspective was rare during that time, as most people believed that the woman's place was in the home or as a schoolteacher. Blackwell had not only a governess, but private tutors to supplement her intellectual development. As a result, she was rather socially isolated from all but her family as she grew up.
The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio a few years later. When Blackwell was 17, her father died, leaving the family with little money.
Early adulthood
The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods – it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy.
Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils.
Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840.
In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life.
Education
Pursuit of medical education
Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy in Asheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving up the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who happened to have been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.
Dickson's school closed down soon after, and Blackwell moved to the residence of Reverend Dickson's brother, Samuel Henry Dickson, a prominent Charleston physician. She started teaching in 1846 at a boarding school in Charleston run by a Mrs. Du Pré. With the help of Reverend Dickson's brother, Blackwell inquired into the possibility of medical study via letters, with no favorable responses. In 1847, Blackwell left Charleston for Philadelphia and New York, with the aim of personally investigating the opportunities for medical study. Blackwell's greatest wish was to be accepted into one of the Philadelphia medical schools.
Upon reaching Philadelphia, Blackwell boarded with Dr. William Elder and studied anatomy privately with Dr. Jonathan M. Allen as she attempted to get her foot in the door at any medical school in Philadelphia. She was met with resistance almost everywhere. Most physicians recommended that she either go to Paris to study or take up a disguise as a man to study medicine. The main reasons offered for her rejection were that (1) she was a woman and therefore intellectually inferior, and (2) she might actually prove equal to the task, prove to be competition, and that she could not expect them to "furnish [her] with a stick to break our heads with". Out of desperation, she applied to twelve "country schools".
Medical education in the United States
In October 1847, Blackwell was accepted as a medical student by Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, located in Syracuse, New York. The dean and faculty, usually responsible for evaluating an applicant for matriculation, were not able to make a decision due to the special nature of Blackwell's case. They put the issue up to a vote by the 150 male students of the class with the stipulation that if one student objected, Blackwell would be turned away. The young men voted unanimously to accept her.
When Blackwell arrived at the college, she was rather nervous. Nothing was familiar – the surroundings, the students, and the faculty. She did not even know where to get her books. However, she soon found herself at home in medical school. While she was at school, she was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends alike, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Dr. Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ran Blockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still would walk out and refuse to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience but was appalled by the syphilitic ward and those afflicted with typhus. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work.
On 23 January 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Dr. Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.
Medical education in Europe
In April 1849, Blackwell made the decision to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then headed to Paris. Her experience there was similar to her experience in America; she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital, under the condition that she would be treated as a student midwife, not a physician. She made the acquaintance of Hippolyte Blot, a young resident physician at La Maternité. She gained much medical experience through his mentoring and training. By the end of the year, Paul Dubois, the foremost obstetrician in his day, had voiced his opinion that she would make the best obstetrician in the United States, male or female.
On 4 November 1849, when Blackwell was treating an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally squirted some contaminated fluid into her own eye and contracted the infection. She lost sight in her left eye, requiring its surgical extraction and leaving her without hope of becoming a surgeon. After a period of recovery, she enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850. She regularly attended James Paget's lectures. She made a positive impression there, although she did meet opposition when she tried to observe the wards.
Feeling that the prejudice against women in medicine was not as strong there, Blackwell returned to New York City in 1851 with the hope of establishing her own practice.
Career
Medical career in the United States
Stateside, Blackwell was faced with adversity, but did manage to get some media support from entities such as the New-York Tribune. She had very few patients, a situation she attributed to the stigma of women doctors as abortionists. In 1852, she began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.
In 1853, Blackwell established a small dispensary near Tompkins Square. She also took Marie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, under her wing, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.
Civil War efforts
When the American Civil War broke out, the Blackwell sisters aided in nursing efforts. Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even went so far as to say she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with the Woman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC. Still, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.
Medical career at home and abroad
Blackwell made several trips back to Britain to raise funds and to try to establish a parallel infirmary project there. In 1858, under a clause in the Medical Act of 1858 that recognised doctors with foreign degrees practicing in Britain before 1858, she was able to become the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register (1 January 1859). She also became a mentor to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project fell through, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.
At this point, a rift occurred between Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell. Both were extremely headstrong, and a power struggle over the management of the infirmary and medical college ensued. Elizabeth, feeling slightly alienated by the United States women's medical movement, left for Britain to try to establish medical education for women there. In July 1869, she sailed for Britain.
In 1874, Blackwell established a women's medical school in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a student at the New York Infirmary years earlier. Blackwell had doubts about Jex-Blake and thought that she was dangerous, belligerent, and tactless. Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as the London School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam of Apothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use of vivisections in the laboratory of the school.
After the establishment of the school, Blackwell lost much of her authority to Jex-Blake and was elected as a lecturer in midwifery. She resigned this position in 1877, officially retiring from her medical career.
While Blackwell viewed medicine as a means for social and moral reform, her student Mary Putnam Jacobi focused on curing disease. At a deeper level of disagreement, Blackwell felt that women would succeed in medicine because of their humane female values, but Jacobi believed that women should participate as the equals of men in all medical specialties.
Time in Europe – social and moral reform
After leaving for Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded the National Health Society in 1871. She perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities – the income from her American investments supported her. She was rather occupied with her social status, and her friend, Barbara Bodichon helped introduce Blackwell into her circles. She traveled across Europe many times during these years, in England, France, Wales, Switzerland and Italy.
Her greatest period of reform activity was after her retirement from the medical profession, from 1880 to 1895. Blackwell was interested in a great number of reform movements – mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but also preventive medicine, sanitation, eugenics, family planning, women's rights, associationism, Christian socialism, medical ethics and antivivisection – none of which ever came to real fruition. She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty, elusive and ultimately unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities: Starnthwaite and Hadleigh in the 1880s.
She believed that the Christian morality ought to play as large a role as scientific inquiry in medicine and that medical schools ought to instruct students in this basic truth. She also was antimaterialist and did not believe in vivisections. She did not see the value of inoculation and thought it dangerous. She believed that bacteria were not the only important cause of disease and felt their importance was being exaggerated.
She campaigned heavily against licentiousness, prostitution and contraceptives, arguing instead for the rhythm method. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children was an essay on prostitution and marriage arguing against the Contagious Diseases Acts. She was conservative in all senses except that she believed women to have sexual passions equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling those passions. Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed by Hatchard and Company. The proofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.
Personal life
Friends and family
Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters with Lady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends with Florence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital together. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels.
However, Blackwell had a very strong personality and was often quite acerbic in her criticism of others, especially other women. Blackwell had a falling out with Florence Nightingale after Nightingale returned from the Crimean War. Nightingale wanted Blackwell to turn her focus to training nurses and could not see the legitimacy of training female physicians. After that, Blackwell's comments upon Florence Nightingale's publications were often highly critical. She was also highly critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices". Blackwell also did not get along well with her more stubborn sisters Anna and Emily, or with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role.
Kitty Barry
In 1856, when Blackwell was establishing the New York Infirmary, she adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan from the House of Refuge on Randall's Island. Diary entries at the time show that she adopted Barry half out of loneliness and a feeling of obligation, and half out of a utilitarian need for domestic help. Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter.
Blackwell did provide for Barry's education. She even instructed Barry in gymnastics as a trial for the theories outlined in her publication, The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls. However, Blackwell never permitted Barry to develop her own interests. She made no effort to introduce Barry to young men or women her own age. Barry herself was rather shy, awkward and self-conscious about her slight deafness. Barry followed Blackwell during her many trans-Atlantic moves, during her furious house hunt between 1874 and 1875, during which they moved six times, and finally to Blackwell's final home, Rock House, a small house off Exmouth Place in Hastings, Sussex, in 1879.
Barry stayed with Blackwell all her life. After Blackwell's death, Barry stayed at Rock House, and then moved to Kilmun in Argyllshire, Scotland, where Blackwell was buried in the churchyard of St Munn's Parish Church. In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.
Private life
None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence. When commenting on the young men trying to court her during her time in Kentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do." Even during her time at Geneva Medical College, she rejected advances from a few suitors.
There was one slight controversy, however, in Blackwell's life related to her relationship with Alfred Sachs, a 26-year-old man from Virginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was in love with Sachs and was mildly jealous of Blackwell. Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Alfred Sachs after the publication of her book.
Last years and death
Blackwell, in her later years, was still relatively active. In 1895, she published her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It was not very successful, selling fewer than 500 copies. After this publication, Blackwell slowly relinquished her public reform presence, and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906 and took her first and last car ride. Blackwell's old age was beginning to limit her activities.
In 1907, while holidaying in Kilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled. On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.
Legacy
The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.
Influence
After Blackwell graduated in 1849, her thesis on typhoid fever was published in the Buffalo Medical Journal.
In 1857, Blackwell opened the New York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women. In the audience at one of her lectures in England, was a woman named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who later became the first woman doctor in England, in 1865.
In 1874, Blackwell worked together with Florence Nightingale, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell, and Thomas Henry Huxley to create the first medical school for women in England, London School of Medicine for Women, for which she acted as the Chair of Hygiene.
Blackwell settled in England in the 1870s and continued working on expanding the profession of medicine for women, influencing as many as 476 women to become registered medical professionals in England alone. Up until her death, Blackwell worked in an active practice in Hastings, England, and continued to lecture at the School of Medicine for Women.
Honors
Two institutions honour Elizabeth Blackwell as an alumna:
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the current name of Geneva College, the founding institution of Geneva Medical College.
The State University of New York Upstate Medical University, which was acquired in 1950 by the State University of New York.
Since 1949, the American Medical Women's Association has awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal annually to a female physician. Hobart and William Smith Colleges awards an annual Elizabeth Blackwell Award to women who have demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind."
In 1973, Elizabeth Blackwell was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.
In 2013 the University of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.
On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday championed by Physician Moms Group [www.Mypmg.com] after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother. The National Holiday pays tribute to Dr. Blackwell of the role she has played influencing women physicians in present-day and their strive for equity and equality.
On 3 February 2018, Google honoured her as a doodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.
In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell founded. For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges erected a statue on their campus honoring Blackwell.
A 2021 book by Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, chronicles the life story of Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell.
Works
1849 The Causes and Treatment of Typhus, or Shipfever (thesis)
1852 The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (brochure, compilation of lecture series) pub. by George Putnam
1856 An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women
1860 Medicine as a Profession for Women (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)
1864 Address on the Medical Education of Women
1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
1881 "Medicine and Morality" (published in Modern Review)
1887 Purchase of Women: the Great Economic Blunder
1871 The Religion of Health (compilation of lecture series to the Sunday Lecture Society, three editions)
1883 Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil, as shown by English Parliamentary Evidence
1888 On the Decay of Municipal Representative Government – A Chapter of Personal Experience (Moral Reform League)
1890 The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine
1891 Erroneous Method in Medical Education etc. (Women's Printing Society)
1892 Why Hygienic Congresses Fail
1895 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (Longmans, reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1977)
1898 Scientific Method in Biology
1902 Essays in Medical Sociology, 2 vols (Ernest Bell)
See also
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain
Emily Blackwell, Sister Emily Blackwell, physician
James Barry, possibly the first female bodied doctor (assigned female at birth but living as a man)
List of first female physicians by country
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, first African American female physician
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
References
Further reading
Baker, Rachel (1944). The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York, OCLC 848388
Howard, Carol (2018). "Elizabeth Blackwell" Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography.
Morantz, Regina. "Feminism, Professionalism and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell," American Quarterly (1982) 34:461–478. in JSTOR
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. "Feminist theory and historical practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell," History & Theory (1992) 31#4 pp 51–69 in JSTOR
Ross, Ishbel (1944). Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970). Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston, OCLC 56257
External links
Elizabeth Blackwell Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections
Women in Science
An online history at the National Institutes of Health, including copies of historical documents
An online biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
Biography from the National Institute of Health
Elizabeth Blackwell at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Elizabeth Blackwell Resources Available in Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Chronological Bibliography of Selected Scholarly Works by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell at winningthevote.org
Papers, 1835–1960. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
Finding aid to Elizabeth Blackwell letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1821 births
1910 deaths
American abolitionists
American feminists
19th-century American women physicians
19th-century American physicians
American women's rights activists
Anti-contraception activists
Anti-vivisectionists
Blackwell family
Burials at Kilmun Parish Church
Christian abolitionists
English emigrants to the United States
Geneva Medical College alumni
Medical doctors from Bristol
People from Hastings
Physicians from Cincinnati
Physicians from New York City
Sex educators
American socialist feminists
Women in the American Civil War
Women medical researchers
Women of the Victorian era
Physicians from Rochester, New York
Anti-prostitution activists
American Christian socialists
American eugenicists
Education activists
Female Christian socialists
British socialist feminists | true | [
"The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires. \n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenging situation in which you found yourself.\n Task: What were you required to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation. Some performance development methods use “Target” rather than “Task”. Job interview candidates who describe a “Target” they set themselves instead of an externally imposed “Task” emphasize their own intrinsic motivation to perform and to develop their performance.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what the alternatives were.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions? Did you meet your objectives? What did you learn from this experience? Have you used this learning since?\n\nThe STAR technique is similar to the SOARA technique.\n\nThe STAR technique is also often complemented with an additional R on the end STARR or STAR(R) with the last R resembling reflection. This R aims to gather insight and interviewee's ability to learn and iterate. Whereas the STAR reveals how and what kind of result on an objective was achieved, the STARR with the additional R helps the interviewer to understand what the interviewee learned from the experience and how they would assimilate experiences. The interviewee can define what they would do (differently, the same, or better) next time being posed with a situation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe ‘STAR’ technique to answer behavioral interview questions\nThe STAR method explained\n\nJob interview",
"The Predator is the third EP by American metalcore band Ice Nine Kills and was self-released by the band on January 15, 2013. The EP debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.\n\nIt is the only album to feature Steve Koch as bassist and backup singer after his departure in 2013, and the last album to feature Justin Morrow as rhythm guitarist; he would switch to bass guitar and backing vocals (on live performance only) while still playing rhythm guitar in studio in 2013.\n\nThe tracks \"The Coffin Is Moving\" and \"What I Never Learned in Study Hall\" later would be featured on the band's 2014 album The Predator Becomes the Prey.\n\nThe track \"What I Never Learned in Study Hall\" was later re-recorded acoustically for Take Action. Vol. 11 making it similar to the song's predecessors \"What I Really Learned in Study Hall\" and \"What I Should Have Learned in Study Hall\". Unlike the original version, the acoustic version did not feature Tyler Carter as guest vocalist, but instead featured former Kid's Jackson Summer vocalist Kate Ellen Dean.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n Spencer Charnas - lead vocals, piano on \"A Reptile's Dysfunction\"\n Justin \"JD\" DeBlieck - lead guitar, lead vocals\n Justin Morrow - rhythm guitar\n Steve Koch - bass guitar, backing vocals\n Connor Sullivan - drums\n Steve Sopchak - producer, engineer, mixing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2013 EPs\nIce Nine Kills EPs\nSelf-released EPs"
] |
[
"Elizabeth Blackwell",
"Early adulthood",
"What job did she have?",
"Blackwell began teaching private pupils.",
"Did she do well?",
"She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures,",
"What did that lead to?",
"she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries"
] | C_f057bbeade334d7db53c3c5992e12d0c_1 | What interesting fact is there regarding her early adulthood? | 4 | What interesting fact is there regarding Elizabeth Blackwell's early adulthood? | Elizabeth Blackwell | The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods - it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy. Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils. Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840. In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $400 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life. CANNOTANSWER | participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840. | Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine, especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool for studying the anatomy enabling vision. Therefore, she became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, except Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, in which the male students voted for Blackwell's acceptance. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.
Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal, shortly after she graduated, was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic and social justice. This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.
Blackwell also founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell in 1857, and began giving lectures to female audiences on the importance of educating girls. She also played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses.
Early life
Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, in Bristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was a sugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell. She had two older siblings, Anna and Marian, and would eventually have six younger siblings: Samuel (married Antoinette Brown), Henry (married Lucy Stone), Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree), Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them.
In 1832, the family emigrated from Bristol, England, to New York because Samuel Blackwell had lost their most profitable sugar refinery to a fire. In New York, Elizabeth's father became active in abolitionist work. Therefore, their dinnertime discussions often surrounded issues such as women's rights, slavery, and child labor. These liberal discussions reflected Hannah and Samuel's attitudes toward child rearing. For example, rather than beating the children for bad behavior, Barbara Blackwell recorded their trespasses in a black book. If the offenses accumulated, the children would be exiled to the attic during dinner. Samuel Blackwell was similarly liberal in his attitude towards the education of his children. Samuel Blackwell was a Congregationalist and exerted a strong influence over the religious and academic education of his children. He believed that each child, including his girls, should be given the opportunity for unlimited development of their talents and gifts. This perspective was rare during that time, as most people believed that the woman's place was in the home or as a schoolteacher. Blackwell had not only a governess, but private tutors to supplement her intellectual development. As a result, she was rather socially isolated from all but her family as she grew up.
The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio a few years later. When Blackwell was 17, her father died, leaving the family with little money.
Early adulthood
The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods – it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy.
Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils.
Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840.
In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life.
Education
Pursuit of medical education
Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy in Asheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving up the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who happened to have been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.
Dickson's school closed down soon after, and Blackwell moved to the residence of Reverend Dickson's brother, Samuel Henry Dickson, a prominent Charleston physician. She started teaching in 1846 at a boarding school in Charleston run by a Mrs. Du Pré. With the help of Reverend Dickson's brother, Blackwell inquired into the possibility of medical study via letters, with no favorable responses. In 1847, Blackwell left Charleston for Philadelphia and New York, with the aim of personally investigating the opportunities for medical study. Blackwell's greatest wish was to be accepted into one of the Philadelphia medical schools.
Upon reaching Philadelphia, Blackwell boarded with Dr. William Elder and studied anatomy privately with Dr. Jonathan M. Allen as she attempted to get her foot in the door at any medical school in Philadelphia. She was met with resistance almost everywhere. Most physicians recommended that she either go to Paris to study or take up a disguise as a man to study medicine. The main reasons offered for her rejection were that (1) she was a woman and therefore intellectually inferior, and (2) she might actually prove equal to the task, prove to be competition, and that she could not expect them to "furnish [her] with a stick to break our heads with". Out of desperation, she applied to twelve "country schools".
Medical education in the United States
In October 1847, Blackwell was accepted as a medical student by Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, located in Syracuse, New York. The dean and faculty, usually responsible for evaluating an applicant for matriculation, were not able to make a decision due to the special nature of Blackwell's case. They put the issue up to a vote by the 150 male students of the class with the stipulation that if one student objected, Blackwell would be turned away. The young men voted unanimously to accept her.
When Blackwell arrived at the college, she was rather nervous. Nothing was familiar – the surroundings, the students, and the faculty. She did not even know where to get her books. However, she soon found herself at home in medical school. While she was at school, she was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends alike, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Dr. Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ran Blockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still would walk out and refuse to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience but was appalled by the syphilitic ward and those afflicted with typhus. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work.
On 23 January 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Dr. Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.
Medical education in Europe
In April 1849, Blackwell made the decision to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then headed to Paris. Her experience there was similar to her experience in America; she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital, under the condition that she would be treated as a student midwife, not a physician. She made the acquaintance of Hippolyte Blot, a young resident physician at La Maternité. She gained much medical experience through his mentoring and training. By the end of the year, Paul Dubois, the foremost obstetrician in his day, had voiced his opinion that she would make the best obstetrician in the United States, male or female.
On 4 November 1849, when Blackwell was treating an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally squirted some contaminated fluid into her own eye and contracted the infection. She lost sight in her left eye, requiring its surgical extraction and leaving her without hope of becoming a surgeon. After a period of recovery, she enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850. She regularly attended James Paget's lectures. She made a positive impression there, although she did meet opposition when she tried to observe the wards.
Feeling that the prejudice against women in medicine was not as strong there, Blackwell returned to New York City in 1851 with the hope of establishing her own practice.
Career
Medical career in the United States
Stateside, Blackwell was faced with adversity, but did manage to get some media support from entities such as the New-York Tribune. She had very few patients, a situation she attributed to the stigma of women doctors as abortionists. In 1852, she began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.
In 1853, Blackwell established a small dispensary near Tompkins Square. She also took Marie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, under her wing, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.
Civil War efforts
When the American Civil War broke out, the Blackwell sisters aided in nursing efforts. Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even went so far as to say she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with the Woman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC. Still, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.
Medical career at home and abroad
Blackwell made several trips back to Britain to raise funds and to try to establish a parallel infirmary project there. In 1858, under a clause in the Medical Act of 1858 that recognised doctors with foreign degrees practicing in Britain before 1858, she was able to become the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register (1 January 1859). She also became a mentor to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project fell through, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.
At this point, a rift occurred between Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell. Both were extremely headstrong, and a power struggle over the management of the infirmary and medical college ensued. Elizabeth, feeling slightly alienated by the United States women's medical movement, left for Britain to try to establish medical education for women there. In July 1869, she sailed for Britain.
In 1874, Blackwell established a women's medical school in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a student at the New York Infirmary years earlier. Blackwell had doubts about Jex-Blake and thought that she was dangerous, belligerent, and tactless. Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as the London School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam of Apothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use of vivisections in the laboratory of the school.
After the establishment of the school, Blackwell lost much of her authority to Jex-Blake and was elected as a lecturer in midwifery. She resigned this position in 1877, officially retiring from her medical career.
While Blackwell viewed medicine as a means for social and moral reform, her student Mary Putnam Jacobi focused on curing disease. At a deeper level of disagreement, Blackwell felt that women would succeed in medicine because of their humane female values, but Jacobi believed that women should participate as the equals of men in all medical specialties.
Time in Europe – social and moral reform
After leaving for Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded the National Health Society in 1871. She perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities – the income from her American investments supported her. She was rather occupied with her social status, and her friend, Barbara Bodichon helped introduce Blackwell into her circles. She traveled across Europe many times during these years, in England, France, Wales, Switzerland and Italy.
Her greatest period of reform activity was after her retirement from the medical profession, from 1880 to 1895. Blackwell was interested in a great number of reform movements – mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but also preventive medicine, sanitation, eugenics, family planning, women's rights, associationism, Christian socialism, medical ethics and antivivisection – none of which ever came to real fruition. She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty, elusive and ultimately unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities: Starnthwaite and Hadleigh in the 1880s.
She believed that the Christian morality ought to play as large a role as scientific inquiry in medicine and that medical schools ought to instruct students in this basic truth. She also was antimaterialist and did not believe in vivisections. She did not see the value of inoculation and thought it dangerous. She believed that bacteria were not the only important cause of disease and felt their importance was being exaggerated.
She campaigned heavily against licentiousness, prostitution and contraceptives, arguing instead for the rhythm method. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children was an essay on prostitution and marriage arguing against the Contagious Diseases Acts. She was conservative in all senses except that she believed women to have sexual passions equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling those passions. Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed by Hatchard and Company. The proofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.
Personal life
Friends and family
Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters with Lady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends with Florence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital together. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels.
However, Blackwell had a very strong personality and was often quite acerbic in her criticism of others, especially other women. Blackwell had a falling out with Florence Nightingale after Nightingale returned from the Crimean War. Nightingale wanted Blackwell to turn her focus to training nurses and could not see the legitimacy of training female physicians. After that, Blackwell's comments upon Florence Nightingale's publications were often highly critical. She was also highly critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices". Blackwell also did not get along well with her more stubborn sisters Anna and Emily, or with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role.
Kitty Barry
In 1856, when Blackwell was establishing the New York Infirmary, she adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan from the House of Refuge on Randall's Island. Diary entries at the time show that she adopted Barry half out of loneliness and a feeling of obligation, and half out of a utilitarian need for domestic help. Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter.
Blackwell did provide for Barry's education. She even instructed Barry in gymnastics as a trial for the theories outlined in her publication, The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls. However, Blackwell never permitted Barry to develop her own interests. She made no effort to introduce Barry to young men or women her own age. Barry herself was rather shy, awkward and self-conscious about her slight deafness. Barry followed Blackwell during her many trans-Atlantic moves, during her furious house hunt between 1874 and 1875, during which they moved six times, and finally to Blackwell's final home, Rock House, a small house off Exmouth Place in Hastings, Sussex, in 1879.
Barry stayed with Blackwell all her life. After Blackwell's death, Barry stayed at Rock House, and then moved to Kilmun in Argyllshire, Scotland, where Blackwell was buried in the churchyard of St Munn's Parish Church. In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.
Private life
None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence. When commenting on the young men trying to court her during her time in Kentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do." Even during her time at Geneva Medical College, she rejected advances from a few suitors.
There was one slight controversy, however, in Blackwell's life related to her relationship with Alfred Sachs, a 26-year-old man from Virginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was in love with Sachs and was mildly jealous of Blackwell. Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Alfred Sachs after the publication of her book.
Last years and death
Blackwell, in her later years, was still relatively active. In 1895, she published her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It was not very successful, selling fewer than 500 copies. After this publication, Blackwell slowly relinquished her public reform presence, and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906 and took her first and last car ride. Blackwell's old age was beginning to limit her activities.
In 1907, while holidaying in Kilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled. On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.
Legacy
The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.
Influence
After Blackwell graduated in 1849, her thesis on typhoid fever was published in the Buffalo Medical Journal.
In 1857, Blackwell opened the New York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women. In the audience at one of her lectures in England, was a woman named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who later became the first woman doctor in England, in 1865.
In 1874, Blackwell worked together with Florence Nightingale, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell, and Thomas Henry Huxley to create the first medical school for women in England, London School of Medicine for Women, for which she acted as the Chair of Hygiene.
Blackwell settled in England in the 1870s and continued working on expanding the profession of medicine for women, influencing as many as 476 women to become registered medical professionals in England alone. Up until her death, Blackwell worked in an active practice in Hastings, England, and continued to lecture at the School of Medicine for Women.
Honors
Two institutions honour Elizabeth Blackwell as an alumna:
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the current name of Geneva College, the founding institution of Geneva Medical College.
The State University of New York Upstate Medical University, which was acquired in 1950 by the State University of New York.
Since 1949, the American Medical Women's Association has awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal annually to a female physician. Hobart and William Smith Colleges awards an annual Elizabeth Blackwell Award to women who have demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind."
In 1973, Elizabeth Blackwell was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.
In 2013 the University of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.
On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday championed by Physician Moms Group [www.Mypmg.com] after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother. The National Holiday pays tribute to Dr. Blackwell of the role she has played influencing women physicians in present-day and their strive for equity and equality.
On 3 February 2018, Google honoured her as a doodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.
In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell founded. For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges erected a statue on their campus honoring Blackwell.
A 2021 book by Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, chronicles the life story of Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell.
Works
1849 The Causes and Treatment of Typhus, or Shipfever (thesis)
1852 The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (brochure, compilation of lecture series) pub. by George Putnam
1856 An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women
1860 Medicine as a Profession for Women (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)
1864 Address on the Medical Education of Women
1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
1881 "Medicine and Morality" (published in Modern Review)
1887 Purchase of Women: the Great Economic Blunder
1871 The Religion of Health (compilation of lecture series to the Sunday Lecture Society, three editions)
1883 Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil, as shown by English Parliamentary Evidence
1888 On the Decay of Municipal Representative Government – A Chapter of Personal Experience (Moral Reform League)
1890 The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine
1891 Erroneous Method in Medical Education etc. (Women's Printing Society)
1892 Why Hygienic Congresses Fail
1895 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (Longmans, reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1977)
1898 Scientific Method in Biology
1902 Essays in Medical Sociology, 2 vols (Ernest Bell)
See also
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain
Emily Blackwell, Sister Emily Blackwell, physician
James Barry, possibly the first female bodied doctor (assigned female at birth but living as a man)
List of first female physicians by country
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, first African American female physician
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
References
Further reading
Baker, Rachel (1944). The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York, OCLC 848388
Howard, Carol (2018). "Elizabeth Blackwell" Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography.
Morantz, Regina. "Feminism, Professionalism and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell," American Quarterly (1982) 34:461–478. in JSTOR
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. "Feminist theory and historical practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell," History & Theory (1992) 31#4 pp 51–69 in JSTOR
Ross, Ishbel (1944). Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970). Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston, OCLC 56257
External links
Elizabeth Blackwell Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections
Women in Science
An online history at the National Institutes of Health, including copies of historical documents
An online biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
Biography from the National Institute of Health
Elizabeth Blackwell at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Elizabeth Blackwell Resources Available in Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Chronological Bibliography of Selected Scholarly Works by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell at winningthevote.org
Papers, 1835–1960. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
Finding aid to Elizabeth Blackwell letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1821 births
1910 deaths
American abolitionists
American feminists
19th-century American women physicians
19th-century American physicians
American women's rights activists
Anti-contraception activists
Anti-vivisectionists
Blackwell family
Burials at Kilmun Parish Church
Christian abolitionists
English emigrants to the United States
Geneva Medical College alumni
Medical doctors from Bristol
People from Hastings
Physicians from Cincinnati
Physicians from New York City
Sex educators
American socialist feminists
Women in the American Civil War
Women medical researchers
Women of the Victorian era
Physicians from Rochester, New York
Anti-prostitution activists
American Christian socialists
American eugenicists
Education activists
Female Christian socialists
British socialist feminists | true | [
"A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of the term; generally, the term is often used to refer to adults in approximately the 20s and 30s age range. The young adult stage in human development precedes middle adulthood.\n\nTime co-ordinates\nFor a variety of reasons, timelines on young adulthood cannot be exactly defined—producing different results according to the different mix of overlapping indices (legal, maturational, occupational, sexual, emotional and the like) employed, or on whether 'a developmental perspective... [or] the socialization perspective is taken. 'Sub-phases in this timetable of psycho-social growth patterns... are not rigid, and both social change and individual variations must be taken into account'—not to mention regional and cultural differences. Arguably indeed, with people living longer, and also reaching puberty earlier, 'age norms for major life events have become highly elastic' by the twenty-first century.\n\nSome have suggested that, after Pre-adulthood... in the first 20 years or so... the second era, Early Adulthood, lasts from about age 17 to 45... the adult era of greatest energy and abundance and of greatest contradiction and stress.' Within that framework, 'the Early Adult Transition (17–22) is a developmental bridge between pre-adulthood and early adulthood', recognizing that 'the transition into adulthood is not a clear-cut dividing line'. One might alternatively speak of 'a Provisional Adulthood (18–30)... [&] the initiation to First Adulthood' as following that. Alternatively, MIT has generally defined \"young adulthood\" as 18 to 22 or 25.\n\nDespite all such fluidity, there is broad agreement that it is essentially the twenties and thirties which constitute Early adulthood... the basis for what Levinson calls the Dream—a vision of his [or her] goals in life which provide motivation and enthusiasm for the future.'\n\nHealth\nYoung/prime adulthood can be considered the healthiest time of life and young adults are generally in good health, subject neither to disease nor the problems of senescence. Strength and physical performance reach their peak from 18 to 39 years of age. Flexibility may decrease with age throughout adulthood.\n\nWomen reach their peak fertility in their early 20s.\nAt age 30\n75% will have a conception ending in a live birth within one year\n91% will have a conception ending in a live birth within four years.\nAt age 35\n 66% will have a conception ending in a live birth within one year\n 84% will have a conception ending in a live birth within four years.\nAt age 40\n44% will have a conception ending in a live birth within one year\n64% will have a conception ending in a live birth within four years.\n\nIn developed countries, mortality rates for the 18–40 age group are typically very low. Men are more likely to die at this age than women, particularly in the 18–25 group: reasons include car accidents and suicide. Mortality statistics among men and women level off during the late twenties and thirties, due in part to good health and less risk-taking behavior.\n\nRegarding disease, cancer is much less common in young than in older adults. Exceptions are testicular cancer, cervical cancer, and Hodgkin's lymphoma. In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS has hit the early adult population particularly hard. According to a United Nations report, AIDS has significantly increased mortality of between ages 20 to 55 for African males and 20 to 45 for African females, reducing the life expectancy in South Africa by 18 years and in Botswana by 34 years.\n\nErik Erikson's theories of early adulthood\nAccording to Erik Erikson, in the wake of the adolescent emphasis upon identity formation, 'the young adult, emerging from the search for and insistence on identity, is eager and willing to fuse their identity with that of others. He [or she] is ready for intimacy, that is, the capacity to commit... to concrete affiliations and partnerships.' To do so means the ability 'to face the fear of ego loss in situations which call for self-abandon: in the solidarity of close affiliations, in orgasms and sexual unions, in close friendships and in physical combat'. Avoidance of such experiences 'because of a fear of ego-loss may lead to a deep sense of isolation and consequent self-absorption'.\n\nWhere isolation is avoided, the young adult may find instead that 'satisfactory sex relations... in some way take the edge off the hostilities and potential rages caused by the oppositeness of male and female, of fact and fancy, of love and hate'; and may grow into the ability to exchange intimacy, love and compassion.\n\nIn modern societies, young adults in their late teens and early 20s encounter a number of issues as they finish school and begin to hold full-time jobs and take on other responsibilities of adulthood; and 'the young adult is usually preoccupied with self-growth in the context of society and relationships with others.' The danger is that in 'the second era, Early Adulthood... we must make crucially important choices regarding marriage, family, work, and lifestyle before we have the maturity or life experience to choose wisely.'\n\nWhile 'young adulthood is filled with avid quests for intimate relationships and other major commitments involving career and life goals', there is also \"a parallel pursuit for the formulation of a set of moral values\". Erikson has argued that it is only now that what he calls the 'ideological mind' of adolescence gives way to 'that ethical sense which is the mark of the adult.'\n\nReaching adulthood in modern society is not always a linear or clean transition. As generations continue to adapt, new markers of adulthood are created that add different social expectations of what it means to be an adult.\n\nDaniel Levinson's Theory of Adult Development\n\nDaniel Levinson argued that developmental sequences continue to occur as we transition into adulthood. Levinson's theory centers around Erik Erikson's conception of life courses. This theory of Erikson includes patterns and relationships of events for the person's life that distinguishes them. The study of the life courses covers all aspects of the life relationships, internal and external feelings, bodily changes, and the good and bad times that are experienced. Preadulthood, Early Adulthood, Middle Adulthood, and Late Adulthood are the four eras that constitute the life course. Preadulthood begins with conception and continues to roughly the age of 22. During these years the person grows from being extremely dependent and undifferentiated to being a more independent responsible adult. This is the era that we see the most biopsychosocial growth. The Early Adulthood Transition is part of this first stage while also being a part of the second stage, this is from the age of 17 to 22. Here is when the preadulthood era begins to draw to a close and the transition to early adulthood begins. It is here that the individual begins to modify their relationship from the preadult world so that they fit better to the adult world they are creating. The second era Early adulthood begins at age 17 and goes till 45. It begins during the early adulthood transition, and has the greatest amount of energy, contradiction and stress. This is typically the time for forming and pursuing aspirations, finding a place in society, forming families and as the era ends establishing a solid position in the adult world. The third period (Middle Adulthood) begins at age 45 and goes till 65, here we begin to see a decline in our biological capacities, the decline is not enough to completely deplete us of the energy we had during early adulthood and it allows for us to continue to have a socially valuable life. The final era is late adulthood this begins with age 65 and goes till death. In this era the individual has to find a new balance between involvement with society and the self. The individual is experiencing more fully the process of dying and here should be given the ability to freely choose the mode of life.\n\nSettling down\nAfter the relative upheaval of the early 30s, the middle to late 30s are often characterized by settling down: 'the establishment phase', involving 'what we would call major life investments—work, family, friends, community activities, and values.' With the making of the major investments in life the individual makes deeper commitments investing more of himself to these commitments he's made. What has been termed 'the Culminating Life Structure for Early Adulthood (33–40) is the vehicle for completing this era and realizing our youthful aspirations.' People in their thirties may increase the financial and emotional investments they make in their lives, and may have been employed long enough to gain promotions and raises. They often become more focused on advancing their careers and gaining stability in their personal lives—'with marriage and child-rearing,' starting a family, coming to the fore as priorities.\n\nGail Sheehy, however, signposts the same twenties/thirties division rather differently, arguing that nowadays 'the twenties have stretched out into a long Provisional Adulthood', and that in fact 'the transition to the Turbulent Thirties marks the initiation to First Adulthood.'\n\nMidlife transition\n\nYoung Adulthood then draws to its close with 'the Midlife Transition, from roughly age 40 to 45'—producing 'a brand-new passage in the forties, when First Adulthood ends and Second Adulthood begins.' It is here in this Midlife Transition that we often find there is an ending of early adulthood as well as individuals making changes in their lives, with the biggest change being the career they are in. Early adulthood can be seen as ended as a person stops seeking adult status or wanting to feel like an adult By the time we reach the midlife transition we move from talking about how old we are to bolster our reputation and emphasize how young they are. In the midlife transition individuals start to focus on the things that become important in their lives that effect their personal lives. Those individuals focus more on the present than the future and the past. Levinson thought midlife to be a time of development of crisis. However, research today in the United States shows that individuals do not experience a midlife crisis. Instead individuals report midlife to be a freeing and satisfying period of life. An important thing to consider as we go through the midlife transition is the physical changes that we experience (outside of the changes that occur to the individual's character). Body image is an important aspect of the physical changes that are often experienced, and midlife transition may necessitate changes to one's perceived body image.\n\nHere in the Midlife transition the issue isn't whether the individual has achieved or failed in accomplishing the goals they formed in the previous era. Rather the issue at hand is what the individual should be doing with the experience of disparity between one's goals and one's outcomes. In this transitional period from early adulthood to middle adulthood, the changes we make tend to focus less on the self and more on the relationships that we have.\n\nSee also\n Emerging adulthood\n Quarter-life crisis\n Twenty something\n Thirty something\n Twixter\n Young professional\n Youth\n Young adult fiction\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n|Erik H. Erikson, Joan M. Erikson, The Life Cycle Completed: Extended Version (W. W. Norton, 1998),\n\n \nAdulthood\nHuman development\nYouth",
"Passive fluency is where a person can fluently read and audibly understand a language whilst not having the ability to fluently speak or write the language. Passive fluency is often brought about by being raised in one language (which becomes the person's passive language) and being schooled in another language (which becomes the person's native language).\n\nPeople who are passively fluent in a language are often latent speakers who were raised in an environment where the language was spoken but did not become native speakers.\n\nLanguage Attitudes regarding \"Passive Bilinguals\"\nA more common term for this phenomenon is 'passive bilingualism'. Grosjean argues that there has been a monolingual bias regarding who is considered a 'bilingual', where people who do not have equal competence in all their languages are judges not speaking properly. 'Balanced bilinguals' are, in fact, very rare, and the fluency of a bilingual in his/ her languages is domain- specific: it depends on what they need the languages for. This means that speakers may not admit to their fluency in their passive language, despite the fact that there are social (extralinguistic) factors underlying their different competencies.\n\nA Need for Passive Bilinguals in Basque Country\nKarlos Cid Abasolo discusses that passive bilingualism would be a minimum requirement for the co- official status of Basque and Spanish to become a working reality. As there are currently many monolingual Spanish speakers, and no monolingual Basque speakers, there is not yet a situation where an individual fluent in Basque could speak in his/ her mother tongue, regardless of the domain, circumstance or interlocutor.\n\nReferences\n\nHelp:Images#Supported media types for images\n\nLanguage\nLanguage education\nOral communication\nMultilingualism"
] |
[
"Elizabeth Blackwell",
"Early adulthood",
"What job did she have?",
"Blackwell began teaching private pupils.",
"Did she do well?",
"She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures,",
"What did that lead to?",
"she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries",
"What interesting fact is there regarding her early adulthood?",
"participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840."
] | C_f057bbeade334d7db53c3c5992e12d0c_1 | Why did she participate? | 5 | Why did Elizabeth Blackwell participate in the Harrison political campaign of 1840? | Elizabeth Blackwell | The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods - it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy. Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils. Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840. In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $400 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life. CANNOTANSWER | she began to articulate thoughts | Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine, especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool for studying the anatomy enabling vision. Therefore, she became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, except Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, in which the male students voted for Blackwell's acceptance. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.
Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal, shortly after she graduated, was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic and social justice. This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.
Blackwell also founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily Blackwell in 1857, and began giving lectures to female audiences on the importance of educating girls. She also played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses.
Early life
Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, in Bristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was a sugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell. She had two older siblings, Anna and Marian, and would eventually have six younger siblings: Samuel (married Antoinette Brown), Henry (married Lucy Stone), Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree), Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them.
In 1832, the family emigrated from Bristol, England, to New York because Samuel Blackwell had lost their most profitable sugar refinery to a fire. In New York, Elizabeth's father became active in abolitionist work. Therefore, their dinnertime discussions often surrounded issues such as women's rights, slavery, and child labor. These liberal discussions reflected Hannah and Samuel's attitudes toward child rearing. For example, rather than beating the children for bad behavior, Barbara Blackwell recorded their trespasses in a black book. If the offenses accumulated, the children would be exiled to the attic during dinner. Samuel Blackwell was similarly liberal in his attitude towards the education of his children. Samuel Blackwell was a Congregationalist and exerted a strong influence over the religious and academic education of his children. He believed that each child, including his girls, should be given the opportunity for unlimited development of their talents and gifts. This perspective was rare during that time, as most people believed that the woman's place was in the home or as a schoolteacher. Blackwell had not only a governess, but private tutors to supplement her intellectual development. As a result, she was rather socially isolated from all but her family as she grew up.
The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio a few years later. When Blackwell was 17, her father died, leaving the family with little money.
Early adulthood
The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school, The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not terribly innovative in its education methods – it was merely a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell's abolition work took a back seat during these years, most likely due to the academy.
Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, in December 1838, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils.
Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in all denominations (Quaker, Millerite, Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in the Harrison political campaign of 1840.
In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life.
Education
Pursuit of medical education
Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy in Asheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving up the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who happened to have been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.
Dickson's school closed down soon after, and Blackwell moved to the residence of Reverend Dickson's brother, Samuel Henry Dickson, a prominent Charleston physician. She started teaching in 1846 at a boarding school in Charleston run by a Mrs. Du Pré. With the help of Reverend Dickson's brother, Blackwell inquired into the possibility of medical study via letters, with no favorable responses. In 1847, Blackwell left Charleston for Philadelphia and New York, with the aim of personally investigating the opportunities for medical study. Blackwell's greatest wish was to be accepted into one of the Philadelphia medical schools.
Upon reaching Philadelphia, Blackwell boarded with Dr. William Elder and studied anatomy privately with Dr. Jonathan M. Allen as she attempted to get her foot in the door at any medical school in Philadelphia. She was met with resistance almost everywhere. Most physicians recommended that she either go to Paris to study or take up a disguise as a man to study medicine. The main reasons offered for her rejection were that (1) she was a woman and therefore intellectually inferior, and (2) she might actually prove equal to the task, prove to be competition, and that she could not expect them to "furnish [her] with a stick to break our heads with". Out of desperation, she applied to twelve "country schools".
Medical education in the United States
In October 1847, Blackwell was accepted as a medical student by Geneva Medical College, currently known as Norton College of Medicine at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, located in Syracuse, New York. The dean and faculty, usually responsible for evaluating an applicant for matriculation, were not able to make a decision due to the special nature of Blackwell's case. They put the issue up to a vote by the 150 male students of the class with the stipulation that if one student objected, Blackwell would be turned away. The young men voted unanimously to accept her.
When Blackwell arrived at the college, she was rather nervous. Nothing was familiar – the surroundings, the students, and the faculty. She did not even know where to get her books. However, she soon found herself at home in medical school. While she was at school, she was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends alike, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Dr. Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ran Blockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still would walk out and refuse to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience but was appalled by the syphilitic ward and those afflicted with typhus. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work.
On 23 January 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Dr. Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.
Medical education in Europe
In April 1849, Blackwell made the decision to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then headed to Paris. Her experience there was similar to her experience in America; she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital, under the condition that she would be treated as a student midwife, not a physician. She made the acquaintance of Hippolyte Blot, a young resident physician at La Maternité. She gained much medical experience through his mentoring and training. By the end of the year, Paul Dubois, the foremost obstetrician in his day, had voiced his opinion that she would make the best obstetrician in the United States, male or female.
On 4 November 1849, when Blackwell was treating an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally squirted some contaminated fluid into her own eye and contracted the infection. She lost sight in her left eye, requiring its surgical extraction and leaving her without hope of becoming a surgeon. After a period of recovery, she enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850. She regularly attended James Paget's lectures. She made a positive impression there, although she did meet opposition when she tried to observe the wards.
Feeling that the prejudice against women in medicine was not as strong there, Blackwell returned to New York City in 1851 with the hope of establishing her own practice.
Career
Medical career in the United States
Stateside, Blackwell was faced with adversity, but did manage to get some media support from entities such as the New-York Tribune. She had very few patients, a situation she attributed to the stigma of women doctors as abortionists. In 1852, she began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.
In 1853, Blackwell established a small dispensary near Tompkins Square. She also took Marie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, under her wing, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.
Civil War efforts
When the American Civil War broke out, the Blackwell sisters aided in nursing efforts. Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even went so far as to say she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with the Woman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC. Still, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.
Medical career at home and abroad
Blackwell made several trips back to Britain to raise funds and to try to establish a parallel infirmary project there. In 1858, under a clause in the Medical Act of 1858 that recognised doctors with foreign degrees practicing in Britain before 1858, she was able to become the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register (1 January 1859). She also became a mentor to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project fell through, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.
At this point, a rift occurred between Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell. Both were extremely headstrong, and a power struggle over the management of the infirmary and medical college ensued. Elizabeth, feeling slightly alienated by the United States women's medical movement, left for Britain to try to establish medical education for women there. In July 1869, she sailed for Britain.
In 1874, Blackwell established a women's medical school in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a student at the New York Infirmary years earlier. Blackwell had doubts about Jex-Blake and thought that she was dangerous, belligerent, and tactless. Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as the London School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam of Apothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use of vivisections in the laboratory of the school.
After the establishment of the school, Blackwell lost much of her authority to Jex-Blake and was elected as a lecturer in midwifery. She resigned this position in 1877, officially retiring from her medical career.
While Blackwell viewed medicine as a means for social and moral reform, her student Mary Putnam Jacobi focused on curing disease. At a deeper level of disagreement, Blackwell felt that women would succeed in medicine because of their humane female values, but Jacobi believed that women should participate as the equals of men in all medical specialties.
Time in Europe – social and moral reform
After leaving for Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded the National Health Society in 1871. She perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities – the income from her American investments supported her. She was rather occupied with her social status, and her friend, Barbara Bodichon helped introduce Blackwell into her circles. She traveled across Europe many times during these years, in England, France, Wales, Switzerland and Italy.
Her greatest period of reform activity was after her retirement from the medical profession, from 1880 to 1895. Blackwell was interested in a great number of reform movements – mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but also preventive medicine, sanitation, eugenics, family planning, women's rights, associationism, Christian socialism, medical ethics and antivivisection – none of which ever came to real fruition. She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty, elusive and ultimately unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities: Starnthwaite and Hadleigh in the 1880s.
She believed that the Christian morality ought to play as large a role as scientific inquiry in medicine and that medical schools ought to instruct students in this basic truth. She also was antimaterialist and did not believe in vivisections. She did not see the value of inoculation and thought it dangerous. She believed that bacteria were not the only important cause of disease and felt their importance was being exaggerated.
She campaigned heavily against licentiousness, prostitution and contraceptives, arguing instead for the rhythm method. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children was an essay on prostitution and marriage arguing against the Contagious Diseases Acts. She was conservative in all senses except that she believed women to have sexual passions equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling those passions. Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed by Hatchard and Company. The proofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.
Personal life
Friends and family
Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters with Lady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends with Florence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital together. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels.
However, Blackwell had a very strong personality and was often quite acerbic in her criticism of others, especially other women. Blackwell had a falling out with Florence Nightingale after Nightingale returned from the Crimean War. Nightingale wanted Blackwell to turn her focus to training nurses and could not see the legitimacy of training female physicians. After that, Blackwell's comments upon Florence Nightingale's publications were often highly critical. She was also highly critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices". Blackwell also did not get along well with her more stubborn sisters Anna and Emily, or with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role.
Kitty Barry
In 1856, when Blackwell was establishing the New York Infirmary, she adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan from the House of Refuge on Randall's Island. Diary entries at the time show that she adopted Barry half out of loneliness and a feeling of obligation, and half out of a utilitarian need for domestic help. Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter.
Blackwell did provide for Barry's education. She even instructed Barry in gymnastics as a trial for the theories outlined in her publication, The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls. However, Blackwell never permitted Barry to develop her own interests. She made no effort to introduce Barry to young men or women her own age. Barry herself was rather shy, awkward and self-conscious about her slight deafness. Barry followed Blackwell during her many trans-Atlantic moves, during her furious house hunt between 1874 and 1875, during which they moved six times, and finally to Blackwell's final home, Rock House, a small house off Exmouth Place in Hastings, Sussex, in 1879.
Barry stayed with Blackwell all her life. After Blackwell's death, Barry stayed at Rock House, and then moved to Kilmun in Argyllshire, Scotland, where Blackwell was buried in the churchyard of St Munn's Parish Church. In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.
Private life
None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence. When commenting on the young men trying to court her during her time in Kentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do." Even during her time at Geneva Medical College, she rejected advances from a few suitors.
There was one slight controversy, however, in Blackwell's life related to her relationship with Alfred Sachs, a 26-year-old man from Virginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was in love with Sachs and was mildly jealous of Blackwell. Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Alfred Sachs after the publication of her book.
Last years and death
Blackwell, in her later years, was still relatively active. In 1895, she published her autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It was not very successful, selling fewer than 500 copies. After this publication, Blackwell slowly relinquished her public reform presence, and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906 and took her first and last car ride. Blackwell's old age was beginning to limit her activities.
In 1907, while holidaying in Kilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled. On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.
Legacy
The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.
Influence
After Blackwell graduated in 1849, her thesis on typhoid fever was published in the Buffalo Medical Journal.
In 1857, Blackwell opened the New York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women. In the audience at one of her lectures in England, was a woman named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who later became the first woman doctor in England, in 1865.
In 1874, Blackwell worked together with Florence Nightingale, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell, and Thomas Henry Huxley to create the first medical school for women in England, London School of Medicine for Women, for which she acted as the Chair of Hygiene.
Blackwell settled in England in the 1870s and continued working on expanding the profession of medicine for women, influencing as many as 476 women to become registered medical professionals in England alone. Up until her death, Blackwell worked in an active practice in Hastings, England, and continued to lecture at the School of Medicine for Women.
Honors
Two institutions honour Elizabeth Blackwell as an alumna:
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the current name of Geneva College, the founding institution of Geneva Medical College.
The State University of New York Upstate Medical University, which was acquired in 1950 by the State University of New York.
Since 1949, the American Medical Women's Association has awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal annually to a female physician. Hobart and William Smith Colleges awards an annual Elizabeth Blackwell Award to women who have demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind."
In 1973, Elizabeth Blackwell was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.
In 2013 the University of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.
On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday championed by Physician Moms Group [www.Mypmg.com] after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother. The National Holiday pays tribute to Dr. Blackwell of the role she has played influencing women physicians in present-day and their strive for equity and equality.
On 3 February 2018, Google honoured her as a doodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.
In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell founded. For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges erected a statue on their campus honoring Blackwell.
A 2021 book by Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, chronicles the life story of Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell.
Works
1849 The Causes and Treatment of Typhus, or Shipfever (thesis)
1852 The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (brochure, compilation of lecture series) pub. by George Putnam
1856 An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women
1860 Medicine as a Profession for Women (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)
1864 Address on the Medical Education of Women
1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
1881 "Medicine and Morality" (published in Modern Review)
1887 Purchase of Women: the Great Economic Blunder
1871 The Religion of Health (compilation of lecture series to the Sunday Lecture Society, three editions)
1883 Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil, as shown by English Parliamentary Evidence
1888 On the Decay of Municipal Representative Government – A Chapter of Personal Experience (Moral Reform League)
1890 The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine
1891 Erroneous Method in Medical Education etc. (Women's Printing Society)
1892 Why Hygienic Congresses Fail
1895 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (Longmans, reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1977)
1898 Scientific Method in Biology
1902 Essays in Medical Sociology, 2 vols (Ernest Bell)
See also
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain
Emily Blackwell, Sister Emily Blackwell, physician
James Barry, possibly the first female bodied doctor (assigned female at birth but living as a man)
List of first female physicians by country
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, first African American female physician
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
References
Further reading
Baker, Rachel (1944). The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York, OCLC 848388
Howard, Carol (2018). "Elizabeth Blackwell" Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography.
Morantz, Regina. "Feminism, Professionalism and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell," American Quarterly (1982) 34:461–478. in JSTOR
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. "Feminist theory and historical practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell," History & Theory (1992) 31#4 pp 51–69 in JSTOR
Ross, Ishbel (1944). Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970). Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston, OCLC 56257
External links
Elizabeth Blackwell Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections
Women in Science
An online history at the National Institutes of Health, including copies of historical documents
An online biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
Biography from the National Institute of Health
Elizabeth Blackwell at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Elizabeth Blackwell Resources Available in Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
Chronological Bibliography of Selected Scholarly Works by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell at winningthevote.org
Papers, 1835–1960. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
Finding aid to Elizabeth Blackwell letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1821 births
1910 deaths
American abolitionists
American feminists
19th-century American women physicians
19th-century American physicians
American women's rights activists
Anti-contraception activists
Anti-vivisectionists
Blackwell family
Burials at Kilmun Parish Church
Christian abolitionists
English emigrants to the United States
Geneva Medical College alumni
Medical doctors from Bristol
People from Hastings
Physicians from Cincinnati
Physicians from New York City
Sex educators
American socialist feminists
Women in the American Civil War
Women medical researchers
Women of the Victorian era
Physicians from Rochester, New York
Anti-prostitution activists
American Christian socialists
American eugenicists
Education activists
Female Christian socialists
British socialist feminists | true | [
"The Hong Kong men's national volleyball team represents Hong Kong in international competitions and friendly matches.\n\nResults\n\nOlympic Games\n1964 to 2020 – Did not qualify\n\nWorld Championship\n1949 to 2018 – Did not enter or Did not qualify\n\nFIVB World Cup\n1965 to 2019 – Did not qualify\n\nAsian Championship\n\n 1975 — Did not participate\n 1979 — Did not participate\n 1983 — 10th place\n 1987 — Did not participate\n 1989 — 14th place\n 1991 — Did not participate\n 1993 — Did not participate\n 1995 — Did not participate\n 1997 — Did not participate\n 1999 — Did not participate\n 2001 — 12th place\n 2003 — Did not participate\n 2005 — 18th place\n 2007 — Did not participate\n 2009 — 17th place\n 2011 — Did not participate\n 2013 — Did not participate\n 2015 — Did not participate\n 2017 — 16th place\n 2019 — 16th place\n 2021 — 14th place\n\nAsian Games\n\n 1958 — 5th place\n 1962 — Did not participate\n 1966 — Did not participate\n 1970 — Did not participate\n 1974 — Did not participate\n 1978 — 13th place\n 1982 — 14th place\n 1986 — 11th place\n 1990 — 8th place\n 1994 — Did not participate\n 1998 — Did not participate\n 2002 — Did not participate\n 2006 — 13th place\n 2010 — 17th place\n 2014 — 15th place\n 2018 — 19th place\n\nTeam\n\nCurrent squad\nThe following is the Hong Kong roster in the 2021 Asian Men's Volleyball Championship.\n\nHead Coach: Hok Chun Yau\n\nNotable players\n Henry Chan\n\nReferences\n\nHong Kong\nVolleyball\nVolleyball in Hong Kong",
"The Indonesia women's national volleyball team represents Indonesia in international women's volleyball competitions and friendly matches.\n\nIt appeared at the Women's Asian Volleyball Championship 10 times, its best position was 5th place at the 1979 event.\n\nCurrent roster\nThe following is the Indonesia roster in the men's volleyball tournament of the 2019 Asian Women's Volleyball Championships.\n\nHead coach: Samsul Jais\n\nCompetition history\n\nAsian Women's Volleyball Championship\n\n 1975 - did not participate\n 1979 - 5th place\n 1983 - did not participate \n 1987 - 6th place\n 1989 - 9th place\n 1991 - 9th place\n 1993 - 8th place\n 1995 - did not participate\n 1997 - did not participate\n 1999 - did not participate\n 2001 - did not participate\n 2003 - did not participate\n 2005 - did not participate\n 2007 - 9th place\n 2009 - 13th place\n 2011 - 13th place\n 2013 - 10th place\n 2015 - did not participate\n 2017 - did not qualified\n 2019 - 8th place\n\nAsian Games\n\n 1958 – Did not participate\n 1962 – Bronze Medal\n 1966 – Did not participate\n 1970 – 7th place\n 1974 – Did not participate\n 1978 – Did not participate\n 1982 – Did not participate\n 1986 – 5th place\n 1990 – Did not participate\n 1994 – Did not participate\n 1998 – Did not participate\n 2002 – Did not participate\n 2006 – Did not participate\n 2010 – Did not participate\n 2014 – Did not participate\n 2018 – 7th place\n\nSoutheast Asian Games\n\n 1977 — Silver Medal\n 1979 — Silver Medal\n 1981 — Silver Medal\n 1983 — Gold Medal \n 1985 — Bronze Medal\n 1987 — Silver Medal \n 1989 — Silver Medal \n 1991 — Silver Medal \n 1993 — Bronze Medal \n 1995 — 4th place \n 1997 — Bronze Medal\n 2001 — 4th place \n 2003 — 4th place \n 2005 — 4th place \n 2007 — Bronze Medal \n 2009 — Bronze Medal \n 2011 — Bronze Medal \n 2013 — Bronze Medal\n 2015 — Bronze Medal \n 2017 — Silver Medal\n 2019 — Bronze Medal\n\nReferences\n\nIndonesia Volleyball Federation\n\nNational women's volleyball teams\nVolleyball\nVolleyball in Indonesia\nWomen's sport in Indonesia"
] |
[
"Freddie King",
"Federal Records"
] | C_d7f8228c3bf54064bb1e372f6b0897b7_0 | When did he work with federal records | 1 | When did Freddie King work with federal records? | Freddie King | In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King's owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," which the next year reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard. After their success with "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. CANNOTANSWER | 1960. | Freddie King (September 3, 1934December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B.B. King, none of whom were blood related). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
Born in Gilmer, Texas, King became acquainted with the guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records, he got signed to Federal Records, and got his break with single "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and instrumental "Hide Away", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with more rhythm and blues and rock oriented producers and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at live performances.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock". He was ranked 25th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 edition of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 15th in the 2011 edition.
Biography
1934–1952: Early life
According to his birth certificate he was named Fred King, and his parents were Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was six years old, his mother and his uncle began teaching him to play the guitar. In autumn 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952 King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children.
1952–1959: Move to Chicago and early works
Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including the guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; the bassist Willie Dixon; the pianist Memphis Slim; and the harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood, Jr., who during these years was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records.
King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records, the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King. A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side, though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon, during a period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them.
1959–1962: Federal Records
In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King Records' owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away", which the next year reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard.
After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.
During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
1966–1974: Cotillion, Shelter, RSO Records
King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis, who had recorded a cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs, Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records.
In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing a recording contract with Shelter Records, a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix.
King performed alongside the big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records. In 1974 he recorded Burglar, for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with the guitarists Clapton and George Terry, the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life,
for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group, to complement King.
Death
Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42.
According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told a journalist, "they've got food in them."
Musical style
King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended the younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in a way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia. He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King, later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release).
According to music critic Cub Koda, King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." He later added in an interview with Dan Forte of Guitar World that King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Got a Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'"
King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace the British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of the great postwar blues masters."
Appraisal of recording work
Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years".
In his only review of a King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic".
Discography
Studio albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of studio albums with year, title, record label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
|rowspan="2"|1961
! scope="row" | Freddy King Sings
| King (762)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King
| King (773)
|
|
|-
| 1962
! scope="row" | Boy – Girl – Boy Freddy King, Lulu Reed & Sonny Thompson
| King (777)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1963
! scope="row" | Bossa Nova and Blues
| King (821)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Freddy King Goes Surfin'''
| King (856)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="1"|1965
! scope="row" | Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals| King (928)
|
|
|-
| 1969
! scope="row" | Freddie King Is a Blues Master| Cotillion (SD 9004)
|
|
|-
| 1970
! scope="row" | My Feeling for the Blues| Cotillion (SD 9016)
|
|
|-
| 1971
! scope="row" | Getting Ready...| Shelter (SW8905)
|
|
|-
| 1972
! scope="row" | Texas Cannonball| Shelter (SW8913)
|
|
|-
| 1973
! scope="row" | Woman Across the River| Shelter (SW8921)
| 54
| 158
|-
| 1974
! scope="row" | Burglar| RSO (SO4803)
| 53
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | Larger Than Life| RSO (SO4811)
|
|
|}
Selected compilation albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of selected compilation albums with year, title, label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
| 1966
! scope="row" | Vocals and Instrumentals| King (964)
|
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King| Shelter (SR-2140)
|
|
|-
| 1977
! scope="row" | Freddie King 1934–1976| RSO (RS-1-3025)
|
|
|-
| 1986
! scope="row" | Just Pickin'| Modern Blues (MB2LP-721)
|
|
|-
| 1992
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero: The Influential Early Sessions| Ace (CDCHD 454)
|
|
|-
| 1993
! scope="row" | Hide Away: The Best of Freddie King| Rhino (R2 71510)
|
|
|-
| 2000
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years| The Right Stuff (72435-27245-2-9)
|
|
|-
| 2002
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero Volume 2| Ace (CDCHD 861)
|
|
|-
| 2009
! scope="row" | Taking Care of Business| Bear Family (BCD 16979 GK)
|
|
|-
| 2010
! scope="row" | Texas Flyer 1974–1976| Bear Family (BCD 16778 EK)
|
|
|-
|}
Charting singles
References
Bibliography
Busby, Mark (2004). The Southwest. Greenwood Publishing Group. .
Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway Books. Digitized September 4, 2008. .
Corcoran, Michael (2005). All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. University of Texas Press. .
Forte, Dan (2000). "Freddie King". In Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Jas Obrecht, ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 275–280. , 978-0-87930-613-7.
Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave; Stephen, Barnard; Perretta, Don (1988). Encyclopedia of Rock. 2nd ed., rev. Schirmer Books. Digitized December 21, 2006. .
Koster, Rick (2000). Texas Music. St. Martin's Press. .
Lawrence, Robb (2008). The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915–1963. Hal Leonard. .
O'Neal, Jim; Van Singel, Amy (2002). The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. 10th ed. Routledge. .
Pruter, Robert (1992). Chicago Soul''. 5th ed., reprint. University of Illinois Press. .
External links
Official website
Freddy King at 45cat.com
1934 births
1976 deaths
African-American guitarists
African-American male singer-songwriters
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues musicians
Apex Records artists
Electric blues musicians
Federal Records artists
King Records artists
Lead guitarists
Musicians from Dallas
People from Longview, Texas
RSO Records artists
Burials at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Texas blues musicians
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Guitarists from Texas
People from Gilmer, Texas
P-Vine Records artists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American singers
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"Federal Records was an American record label founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records and based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was run by famed record producer Ralph Bass and was mainly devoted to Rhythm & Blues releases. The company also released hillbilly and rockabilly recordings from 1951 onward, e.g., \"Rockin' and Rollin\" by Ramblin' Tommy Scott on Federal 10003. Singles were published on both 45 and 78 rpm speed formats.\n\nFederal issued such classics as The Dominoes' \"Sixty Minute Man\", and \"Have Mercy Baby\" as well as Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' \"Work With Me, Annie\" which was opposed immediately by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) but went on to be an enormous hit.\n\nJames Brown was touring with The Famous Flames when they were signed to Federal in 1956. The group's first Federal single, \"Please, Please, Please,\" was a regional hit and eventually sold a million copies.\n\nBetween 1962 and 1965 Freddie King, one of the three Blues \"kings\" (Freddie, B.B. and Albert), released a series of albums, mostly instrumentals, for Federal.\n\nJohnny \"Guitar\" Watson was another artist on Federal Records.\n\nSelected discography\n\nSingles\n\nSee also \n List of record labels\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n King/Federal/DeLuxe Story by David Edwards and Mike Callahan\n Federal Records on the Internet Archive's Great 78 Project\n\nRecord labels established in 1950\nDefunct record labels of the United States\nSoul music record labels\n!",
"\"Work with Me, Annie\" is a 12-bar blues song with words and music by Hank Ballard. It was recorded by Hank Ballard & the Midnighters (formerly The Royals) in Cincinnati on the Federal Records label on January 14, 1954, and released the following month. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) immediately opposed it due to its overtly sexual lyrics, lyrics that had crossed over and were now being listened to by a white teenage audience. Because the record was in such demand and received so much publicity, attempts to restrict it failed and the record shot to number one on the R&B charts and remained there for seven weeks.\n\nThis was the first of the \"Annie\" records and sold a million copies; so did the answer songs \"Annie Had a Baby\" and \"Annie's Aunt Fannie.\" They all were banned for radio play by the FCC. The success of these recordings spurred the practice of recording double entendre records and answer songs. Another answer, \"The Wallflower\", by Etta James, popularly known as \"Roll with Me, Henry\", was reworded by Georgia Gibbs as \"Dance with Me, Henry\" for Top 40 consumption. It had the same melody as \"Work with Me, Annie\". The melody was recycled again by the Midnighters for the song \"Henry's Got Flat Feet (Can't Dance No More)\".\n\nThe song \"Work with Me, Annie\" is part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's \"The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll\" list.\n\nThe song\nHank Ballard had been a fan of \"Sixty Minute Man\" recorded by The Dominoes, a song so explicitly sexual that only a rhythm and blues label would take it. When he got the chance he wrote his own bawdy tune. With its strong melody and distinctive rhythm, the song's structure anticipated the style of rock and roll and was flexible enough that later it could be used with entirely different words. The \"Annie\" lyrics were extremely sexually explicit for the period:\n\"Annie, please don't cheat. Give me all my meat.\"\n\nAnd the punchline:\n\n\"Let's get it while the getting is good.\"\n\nHank Ballard's baritone and excited squeals backed by the group's 'ah-oom' were accompanied by a boogie piano, a driving electric guitar and a booming electric bass. \"Work With Me, Annie\" defined what was to become Rock 'n' Roll.\n\nSee also\nList of number-one rhythm and blues hits (United States)\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nPhoto official King reissue from 1975\n\n1954 singles\nHank Ballard songs\nThe Midnighters songs\nSongs written by Hank Ballard\nSongs about sexuality"
] |
[
"Freddie King",
"Federal Records",
"When did he work with federal records",
"1960."
] | C_d7f8228c3bf54064bb1e372f6b0897b7_0 | Did they produce records for him | 2 | Did federal records produce records for Freddie King? | Freddie King | In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King's owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," which the next year reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard. After their success with "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. CANNOTANSWER | King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" ( | Freddie King (September 3, 1934December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B.B. King, none of whom were blood related). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
Born in Gilmer, Texas, King became acquainted with the guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records, he got signed to Federal Records, and got his break with single "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and instrumental "Hide Away", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with more rhythm and blues and rock oriented producers and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at live performances.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock". He was ranked 25th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 edition of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 15th in the 2011 edition.
Biography
1934–1952: Early life
According to his birth certificate he was named Fred King, and his parents were Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was six years old, his mother and his uncle began teaching him to play the guitar. In autumn 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952 King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children.
1952–1959: Move to Chicago and early works
Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including the guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; the bassist Willie Dixon; the pianist Memphis Slim; and the harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood, Jr., who during these years was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records.
King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records, the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King. A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side, though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon, during a period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them.
1959–1962: Federal Records
In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King Records' owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away", which the next year reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard.
After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.
During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
1966–1974: Cotillion, Shelter, RSO Records
King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis, who had recorded a cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs, Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records.
In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing a recording contract with Shelter Records, a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix.
King performed alongside the big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records. In 1974 he recorded Burglar, for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with the guitarists Clapton and George Terry, the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life,
for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group, to complement King.
Death
Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42.
According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told a journalist, "they've got food in them."
Musical style
King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended the younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in a way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia. He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King, later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release).
According to music critic Cub Koda, King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." He later added in an interview with Dan Forte of Guitar World that King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Got a Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'"
King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace the British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of the great postwar blues masters."
Appraisal of recording work
Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years".
In his only review of a King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic".
Discography
Studio albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of studio albums with year, title, record label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
|rowspan="2"|1961
! scope="row" | Freddy King Sings
| King (762)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King
| King (773)
|
|
|-
| 1962
! scope="row" | Boy – Girl – Boy Freddy King, Lulu Reed & Sonny Thompson
| King (777)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1963
! scope="row" | Bossa Nova and Blues
| King (821)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Freddy King Goes Surfin'''
| King (856)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="1"|1965
! scope="row" | Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals| King (928)
|
|
|-
| 1969
! scope="row" | Freddie King Is a Blues Master| Cotillion (SD 9004)
|
|
|-
| 1970
! scope="row" | My Feeling for the Blues| Cotillion (SD 9016)
|
|
|-
| 1971
! scope="row" | Getting Ready...| Shelter (SW8905)
|
|
|-
| 1972
! scope="row" | Texas Cannonball| Shelter (SW8913)
|
|
|-
| 1973
! scope="row" | Woman Across the River| Shelter (SW8921)
| 54
| 158
|-
| 1974
! scope="row" | Burglar| RSO (SO4803)
| 53
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | Larger Than Life| RSO (SO4811)
|
|
|}
Selected compilation albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of selected compilation albums with year, title, label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
| 1966
! scope="row" | Vocals and Instrumentals| King (964)
|
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King| Shelter (SR-2140)
|
|
|-
| 1977
! scope="row" | Freddie King 1934–1976| RSO (RS-1-3025)
|
|
|-
| 1986
! scope="row" | Just Pickin'| Modern Blues (MB2LP-721)
|
|
|-
| 1992
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero: The Influential Early Sessions| Ace (CDCHD 454)
|
|
|-
| 1993
! scope="row" | Hide Away: The Best of Freddie King| Rhino (R2 71510)
|
|
|-
| 2000
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years| The Right Stuff (72435-27245-2-9)
|
|
|-
| 2002
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero Volume 2| Ace (CDCHD 861)
|
|
|-
| 2009
! scope="row" | Taking Care of Business| Bear Family (BCD 16979 GK)
|
|
|-
| 2010
! scope="row" | Texas Flyer 1974–1976| Bear Family (BCD 16778 EK)
|
|
|-
|}
Charting singles
References
Bibliography
Busby, Mark (2004). The Southwest. Greenwood Publishing Group. .
Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway Books. Digitized September 4, 2008. .
Corcoran, Michael (2005). All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. University of Texas Press. .
Forte, Dan (2000). "Freddie King". In Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Jas Obrecht, ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 275–280. , 978-0-87930-613-7.
Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave; Stephen, Barnard; Perretta, Don (1988). Encyclopedia of Rock. 2nd ed., rev. Schirmer Books. Digitized December 21, 2006. .
Koster, Rick (2000). Texas Music. St. Martin's Press. .
Lawrence, Robb (2008). The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915–1963. Hal Leonard. .
O'Neal, Jim; Van Singel, Amy (2002). The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. 10th ed. Routledge. .
Pruter, Robert (1992). Chicago Soul''. 5th ed., reprint. University of Illinois Press. .
External links
Official website
Freddy King at 45cat.com
1934 births
1976 deaths
African-American guitarists
African-American male singer-songwriters
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues musicians
Apex Records artists
Electric blues musicians
Federal Records artists
King Records artists
Lead guitarists
Musicians from Dallas
People from Longview, Texas
RSO Records artists
Burials at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Texas blues musicians
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Guitarists from Texas
People from Gilmer, Texas
P-Vine Records artists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American singers
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"Majestic Record Corporation was an American record label in 1916 and 1917.\n\nMajestic was incorporated in the state of New York on September 25, 1916 with a capitalization of $10,000. Three names behind the start of Majestic were J. C. Reis, R. V. Schoenfeld and D. Green. They had their corporate office and their manufacturing site at two separate locations in New York City.\n\nMajestic was part of the miniature record fad of this era that was started by Little Wonder Records in 1914. They initially produced 7-inch 78rpm vertical-cut records and would later also produce 9.25-inch vertical cut records. Both records had an etched label design. They marketed heavily to the trade looking for distributors for their records throughout the country. The 7-inch record sold for 25 cents while the 9.25-inch record sold for 50 cents. The selling point for Majestic was both the selling price and that they had 165 threads to the inch (or grooves to the inch) — a very fine groove. This meant they played as long as their competitors' standard 10-inch records for a fraction of the price. The 9.25-inch records claimed four-and-a-half minutes of music. Since these records were vertical-cut, they also sold the Majestic Adaptor so that the records could be played on any phonograph.\n\nOne of the companies they did strike a distribution deal with was the King Talking Machine Company, also of New York City, makers of the Harrolla line of phonographs. This was announced to the trade in February 1917. It is not clear when exactly, but by June 1917 both of these companies appear to have folded.\n\nSee also\nList of record labels\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Website\n\nAmerican record labels\nRecord labels established in 1916\nRecord labels disestablished in 1917\nCompanies based in New York City",
"Nicholas Grigoryevich Sergeyev (1876–1951) (, variously written in the Latin alphabet as Nicholas or Nikolai Sergeev, Sergueev or Sergueeff etc.) was a Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher, and regisseur of the Imperial Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. He fled Russia in 1919 and spent the rest of his life in the West, producing ballets for many of the leading western companies of the time. He is remembered for preserving what is now called the Sergeyev Collection for future generations.\n\nSergeyev was born on 15 September 1876 in St Petersburg. He was accepted for training by the Imperial Ballet School and he graduated and joined the company in 1894. He was promoted to soloist and régisseur in 1904 and régisseur-général in 1914. He was thus the last ever régisseur-général of the Imperial Ballet.\n\nIn 1919 he and his wife fled Russia, as did many Russian ballet professionals after the Bolshevik revolution. It was a hazardous journey and the last leg was from Riga on a British warship. He was not the only one the Royal Navy helped to escape. Tamara Karsavina escaped from Murmansk with her husband, the British diplomat Henry James Bruce, with the aid of sailors of a British cruiser stationed in the White Sea, and Mathilde Kschessinskaya escaped from the Black Sea port of Novorossisk with her lover and future husband, the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, with the aid of sailors at a British base there. Not for nothing did Soviet Russia describe the British and other nations that interfered in the Russian Civil War as the “foreign interventionists”\n\nSergeyev brought with him the records of the Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov choreographies of some 20 classical ballets in the Stepanov notation, what is now known as the Sergeyev Collection, fearing that these invaluable records would be lost to posterity in the upheaval of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War that followed. He used these records in his subsequent employment by many of the leading Western ballet companies of the time, and after his death they finished up housed at the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection.\n\nIn 1921 he met Serge Diaghilev in Paris. He had of course known Diaghilev in St Petersburg when they both worked for the Imperial Ballet. Diaghilev hired him for his Ballets Russes company and brought him to London to reproduce in its original form the ballet Sleeping Princess (now known as Sleeping Beauty) for his financially disastrous 1921 season at the Alhambra Theatre.\n\nAfter disagreements with Diaghilev he went to Riga as regisseur of the Latvian National Opera Ballet. He also founded his own company and produced Act IV of La Bayadere, La Fille mal Gardee, and Paquita, all from his Maryinsky notations.\n\nIn 1925 the émigré Russian Prima Ballerina Olga Spessivtseva hired him to produce Giselle for her at the Paris Opera. This was a huge success, and gained for him the medal of L'Academie Nationale de Musique et la Danse.\n\nBack in Riga he found his own ballet company in financial difficulties, so he joined the newly formed Russian Opera Company as ballet master. The company went on a world tour producing excerpts from classical ballets and operatic interludes. In 1934 this company was disbanded and Sergeyev came to London. He produced Giselle first for the Camargo Society and then for the Vic-Wells Company, with Spessivtseva, Markova and Dolin dancing lead roles at some of the performances. He stayed with the Vic-Wells to produce Swan Lake, Coppelia, and Casse Noisette, and then the 1939 production of Sleeping Princess. He was ballet master for the Vic-Wells from 1937 to 1942, when Vera Volkova took over.\n\nAt the same time he did some work for International Ballet, the fledgling touring company formed by Mona Inglesby in 1941. When he left Sadler's Wells he joined International Ballet, as ballet master and director of the International Ballet School in Queensberry Mews, South Kensington. He never had a formal contract but it was an arrangement that suited both sides admirably and he stayed with International Ballet for the rest of his life. He had a new company of young dancers to train and rehearse in the traditions of the Maryinsky and a young director who believed in his methods. Inglesby had the only person in the world outside Soviet Russia who could produce the classical ballets in their original Petipa/Ivanov forms, which is what she wanted her company to do. Between 1942 and 1948 he re-created full length productions of the classics Giselle, Coppelia, Sleeping Princess and Swan Lake, as well as some shorter ballets and some short extracts from the classics.\n\nHe worked with International Ballet until his health started to fail, and he died in Nice on 23 June 1951 aged 74.\n\nReferences\n\nMale ballet dancers of the Russian Empire\n1876 births\n1951 deaths\nPeople from Saint Petersburg\nWhite Russian emigrants to France"
] |
[
"Freddie King",
"Federal Records",
"When did he work with federal records",
"1960.",
"Did they produce records for him",
"King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: \"Have You Ever Loved a Woman\" backed with \"You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling\" ("
] | C_d7f8228c3bf54064bb1e372f6b0897b7_0 | Did they do any other records | 3 | Did federal records do any other records besides "Have You Ever Loved a Woman"? | Freddie King | In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King's owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," which the next year reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard. After their success with "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. CANNOTANSWER | From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," | Freddie King (September 3, 1934December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B.B. King, none of whom were blood related). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
Born in Gilmer, Texas, King became acquainted with the guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records, he got signed to Federal Records, and got his break with single "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and instrumental "Hide Away", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with more rhythm and blues and rock oriented producers and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at live performances.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock". He was ranked 25th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 edition of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 15th in the 2011 edition.
Biography
1934–1952: Early life
According to his birth certificate he was named Fred King, and his parents were Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was six years old, his mother and his uncle began teaching him to play the guitar. In autumn 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952 King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children.
1952–1959: Move to Chicago and early works
Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including the guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; the bassist Willie Dixon; the pianist Memphis Slim; and the harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood, Jr., who during these years was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records.
King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records, the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King. A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side, though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon, during a period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them.
1959–1962: Federal Records
In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King Records' owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away", which the next year reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard.
After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.
During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
1966–1974: Cotillion, Shelter, RSO Records
King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis, who had recorded a cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs, Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records.
In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing a recording contract with Shelter Records, a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix.
King performed alongside the big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records. In 1974 he recorded Burglar, for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with the guitarists Clapton and George Terry, the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life,
for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group, to complement King.
Death
Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42.
According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told a journalist, "they've got food in them."
Musical style
King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended the younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in a way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia. He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King, later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release).
According to music critic Cub Koda, King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." He later added in an interview with Dan Forte of Guitar World that King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Got a Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'"
King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace the British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of the great postwar blues masters."
Appraisal of recording work
Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years".
In his only review of a King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic".
Discography
Studio albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of studio albums with year, title, record label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
|rowspan="2"|1961
! scope="row" | Freddy King Sings
| King (762)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King
| King (773)
|
|
|-
| 1962
! scope="row" | Boy – Girl – Boy Freddy King, Lulu Reed & Sonny Thompson
| King (777)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1963
! scope="row" | Bossa Nova and Blues
| King (821)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Freddy King Goes Surfin'''
| King (856)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="1"|1965
! scope="row" | Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals| King (928)
|
|
|-
| 1969
! scope="row" | Freddie King Is a Blues Master| Cotillion (SD 9004)
|
|
|-
| 1970
! scope="row" | My Feeling for the Blues| Cotillion (SD 9016)
|
|
|-
| 1971
! scope="row" | Getting Ready...| Shelter (SW8905)
|
|
|-
| 1972
! scope="row" | Texas Cannonball| Shelter (SW8913)
|
|
|-
| 1973
! scope="row" | Woman Across the River| Shelter (SW8921)
| 54
| 158
|-
| 1974
! scope="row" | Burglar| RSO (SO4803)
| 53
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | Larger Than Life| RSO (SO4811)
|
|
|}
Selected compilation albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of selected compilation albums with year, title, label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
| 1966
! scope="row" | Vocals and Instrumentals| King (964)
|
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King| Shelter (SR-2140)
|
|
|-
| 1977
! scope="row" | Freddie King 1934–1976| RSO (RS-1-3025)
|
|
|-
| 1986
! scope="row" | Just Pickin'| Modern Blues (MB2LP-721)
|
|
|-
| 1992
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero: The Influential Early Sessions| Ace (CDCHD 454)
|
|
|-
| 1993
! scope="row" | Hide Away: The Best of Freddie King| Rhino (R2 71510)
|
|
|-
| 2000
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years| The Right Stuff (72435-27245-2-9)
|
|
|-
| 2002
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero Volume 2| Ace (CDCHD 861)
|
|
|-
| 2009
! scope="row" | Taking Care of Business| Bear Family (BCD 16979 GK)
|
|
|-
| 2010
! scope="row" | Texas Flyer 1974–1976| Bear Family (BCD 16778 EK)
|
|
|-
|}
Charting singles
References
Bibliography
Busby, Mark (2004). The Southwest. Greenwood Publishing Group. .
Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway Books. Digitized September 4, 2008. .
Corcoran, Michael (2005). All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. University of Texas Press. .
Forte, Dan (2000). "Freddie King". In Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Jas Obrecht, ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 275–280. , 978-0-87930-613-7.
Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave; Stephen, Barnard; Perretta, Don (1988). Encyclopedia of Rock. 2nd ed., rev. Schirmer Books. Digitized December 21, 2006. .
Koster, Rick (2000). Texas Music. St. Martin's Press. .
Lawrence, Robb (2008). The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915–1963. Hal Leonard. .
O'Neal, Jim; Van Singel, Amy (2002). The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. 10th ed. Routledge. .
Pruter, Robert (1992). Chicago Soul''. 5th ed., reprint. University of Illinois Press. .
External links
Official website
Freddy King at 45cat.com
1934 births
1976 deaths
African-American guitarists
African-American male singer-songwriters
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues musicians
Apex Records artists
Electric blues musicians
Federal Records artists
King Records artists
Lead guitarists
Musicians from Dallas
People from Longview, Texas
RSO Records artists
Burials at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Texas blues musicians
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Guitarists from Texas
People from Gilmer, Texas
P-Vine Records artists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American singers
20th-century African-American male singers | false | [
"Against tha Grain – The E.P. is an EP bootleg compilation that consists of the songs that Kurupt and Koch Records removed from Against tha Grain, as well as other filler tracks that had nothing to do with the original release. The diss records were recorded in 2003-'04 however they were not released because after making up with Snoop Dogg and the rest of Tha Dogg Pound, Kurupt did not want to see any backlash for his previously recorded diss songs for Death Row Records and since he had just made a deal with Koch to release Tha Dogg Pound's reunion album, they removed the songs from the retail version of Against Tha Grain. A group of Death Row and 2Pac fanatics who operated under the name \"For The People Entertainment\" were able to purchase these tracks from someone who had access to them. They were released online in digital format, and Kurupt has gone on record saying it was in poor taste to do, and just done to cause drama.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2007 EPs\nKurupt albums\nHip hop EPs\nE1 Music EPs",
"I Can Do Nothing Alone is a studio album by American country singer-songwriter Bill Anderson. It was released in June 1967 on Decca Records and was produced by Owen Bradley. It was Anderson's seventh studio record and his first album to consist entirely of gospel music. Although the album did not produce any singles, it made peak positions on the Billboard country albums chart.\n\nBackground and content\nAnderson was inspired to record the album after the passing of his grandfather in 1965. Anderson recalled sitting beside him at the hospital when his grandfather said to him, \"You don't have to be a preacher to do good in this world. You can live the right kind of life and let other people know that you stand for the right kind of things and they will get the message.\" This inspired Anderson to compose the album's title track \"I Can Do Nothing Alone\". The album consisted of ten tracks, all of which were gospel songs. All of the tracks were cut at the Columbia Recording Studio in February 1967 under the guidance of Owen Bradley. Among the songs recorded with Bradley included covers of traditional gospel songs. Songs featured included \"Standing on the Promises\", \"Where He Leads Me\" and \"Blessed Assurance\".\n\nRelease and reception\n\nI Can Do Nothing Alone was released in June 1967 on Decca Records. Five tracks were included on each side of the original record. Following its release, the album peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart in September 1967. The album spent 12 weeks on the country chart. The album did not produce any singles that were released. The album did however receive a rating from Allmusic, which gave it 2.5 out of 5 possible stars. Meanwhile, Billboard gave it a positive response in their June 1967 issue of the magazine. \"Hit country artist Bill Anderson has a tremendous gospel hit here,\" writers commented.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nAll credits are adapted from the liner notes of I Can Do Nothing Alone.\n\nMusical personnel\n Bill Anderson – lead vocals\n Harold Bradley – guitar, banjo\n Ray Edenton – guitar\n Sonny Garrish – steel guitar\n Roy Huskey – bass\n The Jordanaires – background vocals\n Jimmy Lance – guitar\n Len Miller – drums\n Hal Rugg – steel guitar\n Jerry Smith – piano\n\nTechnical personnel\n Owen Bradley – record producer\n Hal Buksbaum – photography\n\nChart performance\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1967 albums\nAlbums produced by Owen Bradley\nBill Anderson (singer) albums\nDecca Records albums"
] |
[
"Freddie King",
"Federal Records",
"When did he work with federal records",
"1960.",
"Did they produce records for him",
"King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: \"Have You Ever Loved a Woman\" backed with \"You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling\" (",
"Did they do any other records",
"From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental \"Hide Away,\""
] | C_d7f8228c3bf54064bb1e372f6b0897b7_0 | What else is important about federal records | 4 | What else is important about federal records other than their work with Freddie King? | Freddie King | In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King's owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," which the next year reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard. After their success with "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. CANNOTANSWER | During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. | Freddie King (September 3, 1934December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B.B. King, none of whom were blood related). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
Born in Gilmer, Texas, King became acquainted with the guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records, he got signed to Federal Records, and got his break with single "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and instrumental "Hide Away", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with more rhythm and blues and rock oriented producers and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at live performances.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock". He was ranked 25th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 edition of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 15th in the 2011 edition.
Biography
1934–1952: Early life
According to his birth certificate he was named Fred King, and his parents were Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was six years old, his mother and his uncle began teaching him to play the guitar. In autumn 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952 King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children.
1952–1959: Move to Chicago and early works
Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including the guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; the bassist Willie Dixon; the pianist Memphis Slim; and the harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood, Jr., who during these years was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records.
King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records, the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King. A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side, though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon, during a period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them.
1959–1962: Federal Records
In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King Records' owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away", which the next year reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard.
After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.
During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
1966–1974: Cotillion, Shelter, RSO Records
King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis, who had recorded a cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs, Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records.
In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing a recording contract with Shelter Records, a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix.
King performed alongside the big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records. In 1974 he recorded Burglar, for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with the guitarists Clapton and George Terry, the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life,
for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group, to complement King.
Death
Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42.
According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told a journalist, "they've got food in them."
Musical style
King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended the younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in a way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia. He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King, later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release).
According to music critic Cub Koda, King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." He later added in an interview with Dan Forte of Guitar World that King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Got a Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'"
King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace the British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of the great postwar blues masters."
Appraisal of recording work
Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years".
In his only review of a King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic".
Discography
Studio albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of studio albums with year, title, record label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
|rowspan="2"|1961
! scope="row" | Freddy King Sings
| King (762)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King
| King (773)
|
|
|-
| 1962
! scope="row" | Boy – Girl – Boy Freddy King, Lulu Reed & Sonny Thompson
| King (777)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1963
! scope="row" | Bossa Nova and Blues
| King (821)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Freddy King Goes Surfin'''
| King (856)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="1"|1965
! scope="row" | Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals| King (928)
|
|
|-
| 1969
! scope="row" | Freddie King Is a Blues Master| Cotillion (SD 9004)
|
|
|-
| 1970
! scope="row" | My Feeling for the Blues| Cotillion (SD 9016)
|
|
|-
| 1971
! scope="row" | Getting Ready...| Shelter (SW8905)
|
|
|-
| 1972
! scope="row" | Texas Cannonball| Shelter (SW8913)
|
|
|-
| 1973
! scope="row" | Woman Across the River| Shelter (SW8921)
| 54
| 158
|-
| 1974
! scope="row" | Burglar| RSO (SO4803)
| 53
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | Larger Than Life| RSO (SO4811)
|
|
|}
Selected compilation albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of selected compilation albums with year, title, label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
| 1966
! scope="row" | Vocals and Instrumentals| King (964)
|
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King| Shelter (SR-2140)
|
|
|-
| 1977
! scope="row" | Freddie King 1934–1976| RSO (RS-1-3025)
|
|
|-
| 1986
! scope="row" | Just Pickin'| Modern Blues (MB2LP-721)
|
|
|-
| 1992
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero: The Influential Early Sessions| Ace (CDCHD 454)
|
|
|-
| 1993
! scope="row" | Hide Away: The Best of Freddie King| Rhino (R2 71510)
|
|
|-
| 2000
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years| The Right Stuff (72435-27245-2-9)
|
|
|-
| 2002
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero Volume 2| Ace (CDCHD 861)
|
|
|-
| 2009
! scope="row" | Taking Care of Business| Bear Family (BCD 16979 GK)
|
|
|-
| 2010
! scope="row" | Texas Flyer 1974–1976| Bear Family (BCD 16778 EK)
|
|
|-
|}
Charting singles
References
Bibliography
Busby, Mark (2004). The Southwest. Greenwood Publishing Group. .
Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway Books. Digitized September 4, 2008. .
Corcoran, Michael (2005). All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. University of Texas Press. .
Forte, Dan (2000). "Freddie King". In Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Jas Obrecht, ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 275–280. , 978-0-87930-613-7.
Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave; Stephen, Barnard; Perretta, Don (1988). Encyclopedia of Rock. 2nd ed., rev. Schirmer Books. Digitized December 21, 2006. .
Koster, Rick (2000). Texas Music. St. Martin's Press. .
Lawrence, Robb (2008). The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915–1963. Hal Leonard. .
O'Neal, Jim; Van Singel, Amy (2002). The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. 10th ed. Routledge. .
Pruter, Robert (1992). Chicago Soul''. 5th ed., reprint. University of Illinois Press. .
External links
Official website
Freddy King at 45cat.com
1934 births
1976 deaths
African-American guitarists
African-American male singer-songwriters
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues musicians
Apex Records artists
Electric blues musicians
Federal Records artists
King Records artists
Lead guitarists
Musicians from Dallas
People from Longview, Texas
RSO Records artists
Burials at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Texas blues musicians
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Guitarists from Texas
People from Gilmer, Texas
P-Vine Records artists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American singers
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"\"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",
"Finally Awake is the fifth studio album released by Christian rock band Seventh Day Slumber. It was released on March 20, 2007 under Tooth & Nail Records. Finally Awake reached its peak on the Top Christian Albums chart at No. 16 in 2007.\n\nMeaning \nWhen Joseph Rojas was asked about the meaning behind Finally Awake, he responded: \"The message of this album is clear. We want to empower kids to stop looking to the media, to what the world tells them they have to be, to find identity. You don’t have to be what everyone else tells you to. Be what you were created to be.\"\n\nTrack listing \n \"Awake\" - 3:42\n \"Last Regret\" - 3:08\n \"Missing Pages\" - 3:53\n \"My Only Hope\" - 3:45\n \"Always\" - 4:40\n \"Breaking Away\" - 3:35\n \"Burning Bridges\" - 3:54\n \"Undone\" - 3:26\n \"On My Way Home\" - 3:43\n \"Broken Buildings\" - 4:21\n \"Every Saturday\" - 4:20\n\nReferences \n\n2007 albums\nTooth & Nail Records albums\nSeventh Day Slumber albums"
] |
[
"Freddie King",
"Federal Records",
"When did he work with federal records",
"1960.",
"Did they produce records for him",
"King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: \"Have You Ever Loved a Woman\" backed with \"You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling\" (",
"Did they do any other records",
"From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental \"Hide Away,\"",
"What else is important about federal records",
"During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown."
] | C_d7f8228c3bf54064bb1e372f6b0897b7_0 | Where did they tour | 5 | Where did Freddie King tour with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown? | Freddie King | In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King's owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," which the next year reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard. After their success with "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Freddie King (September 3, 1934December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B.B. King, none of whom were blood related). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
Born in Gilmer, Texas, King became acquainted with the guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records, he got signed to Federal Records, and got his break with single "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and instrumental "Hide Away", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with more rhythm and blues and rock oriented producers and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at live performances.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock". He was ranked 25th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 edition of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 15th in the 2011 edition.
Biography
1934–1952: Early life
According to his birth certificate he was named Fred King, and his parents were Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was six years old, his mother and his uncle began teaching him to play the guitar. In autumn 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952 King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children.
1952–1959: Move to Chicago and early works
Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including the guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; the bassist Willie Dixon; the pianist Memphis Slim; and the harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood, Jr., who during these years was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records.
King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records, the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King. A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side, though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon, during a period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them.
1959–1962: Federal Records
In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King Records' owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away", which the next year reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard.
After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.
During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
1966–1974: Cotillion, Shelter, RSO Records
King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis, who had recorded a cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs, Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records.
In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing a recording contract with Shelter Records, a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix.
King performed alongside the big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records. In 1974 he recorded Burglar, for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with the guitarists Clapton and George Terry, the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life,
for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group, to complement King.
Death
Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42.
According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told a journalist, "they've got food in them."
Musical style
King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended the younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in a way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia. He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King, later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release).
According to music critic Cub Koda, King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." He later added in an interview with Dan Forte of Guitar World that King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Got a Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'"
King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace the British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of the great postwar blues masters."
Appraisal of recording work
Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years".
In his only review of a King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic".
Discography
Studio albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of studio albums with year, title, record label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
|rowspan="2"|1961
! scope="row" | Freddy King Sings
| King (762)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King
| King (773)
|
|
|-
| 1962
! scope="row" | Boy – Girl – Boy Freddy King, Lulu Reed & Sonny Thompson
| King (777)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1963
! scope="row" | Bossa Nova and Blues
| King (821)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Freddy King Goes Surfin'''
| King (856)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="1"|1965
! scope="row" | Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals| King (928)
|
|
|-
| 1969
! scope="row" | Freddie King Is a Blues Master| Cotillion (SD 9004)
|
|
|-
| 1970
! scope="row" | My Feeling for the Blues| Cotillion (SD 9016)
|
|
|-
| 1971
! scope="row" | Getting Ready...| Shelter (SW8905)
|
|
|-
| 1972
! scope="row" | Texas Cannonball| Shelter (SW8913)
|
|
|-
| 1973
! scope="row" | Woman Across the River| Shelter (SW8921)
| 54
| 158
|-
| 1974
! scope="row" | Burglar| RSO (SO4803)
| 53
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | Larger Than Life| RSO (SO4811)
|
|
|}
Selected compilation albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of selected compilation albums with year, title, label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
| 1966
! scope="row" | Vocals and Instrumentals| King (964)
|
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King| Shelter (SR-2140)
|
|
|-
| 1977
! scope="row" | Freddie King 1934–1976| RSO (RS-1-3025)
|
|
|-
| 1986
! scope="row" | Just Pickin'| Modern Blues (MB2LP-721)
|
|
|-
| 1992
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero: The Influential Early Sessions| Ace (CDCHD 454)
|
|
|-
| 1993
! scope="row" | Hide Away: The Best of Freddie King| Rhino (R2 71510)
|
|
|-
| 2000
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years| The Right Stuff (72435-27245-2-9)
|
|
|-
| 2002
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero Volume 2| Ace (CDCHD 861)
|
|
|-
| 2009
! scope="row" | Taking Care of Business| Bear Family (BCD 16979 GK)
|
|
|-
| 2010
! scope="row" | Texas Flyer 1974–1976| Bear Family (BCD 16778 EK)
|
|
|-
|}
Charting singles
References
Bibliography
Busby, Mark (2004). The Southwest. Greenwood Publishing Group. .
Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway Books. Digitized September 4, 2008. .
Corcoran, Michael (2005). All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. University of Texas Press. .
Forte, Dan (2000). "Freddie King". In Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Jas Obrecht, ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 275–280. , 978-0-87930-613-7.
Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave; Stephen, Barnard; Perretta, Don (1988). Encyclopedia of Rock. 2nd ed., rev. Schirmer Books. Digitized December 21, 2006. .
Koster, Rick (2000). Texas Music. St. Martin's Press. .
Lawrence, Robb (2008). The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915–1963. Hal Leonard. .
O'Neal, Jim; Van Singel, Amy (2002). The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. 10th ed. Routledge. .
Pruter, Robert (1992). Chicago Soul''. 5th ed., reprint. University of Illinois Press. .
External links
Official website
Freddy King at 45cat.com
1934 births
1976 deaths
African-American guitarists
African-American male singer-songwriters
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues musicians
Apex Records artists
Electric blues musicians
Federal Records artists
King Records artists
Lead guitarists
Musicians from Dallas
People from Longview, Texas
RSO Records artists
Burials at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Texas blues musicians
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Guitarists from Texas
People from Gilmer, Texas
P-Vine Records artists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American singers
20th-century African-American male singers | false | [
"\nThis is a list of the 29 players who earned their 2011 PGA Tour card through Q School in 2010. Note: Michael Putnam and Justin Hicks had already qualified for the PGA Tour by placing in the Top 25 during the 2010 Nationwide Tour season; they did not count among the Top 25 Q school graduates, but Putnam did improve his status.\n\nPlayers in yellow are 2011 PGA Tour rookies.\n\n2011 Results\n\n*PGA Tour rookie in 2011\nT = Tied \nGreen background indicates the player retained his PGA Tour card for 2012 (finished inside the top 125). \nYellow background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2012, but retained conditional status (finished between 126-150). \nRed background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2012 (finished outside the top 150).\n\nWinners on the PGA Tour in 2011\n\nRunners-up on the PGA Tour in 2011\n\nSee also\n2010 Nationwide Tour graduates\n\nReferences\nShort bios from pgatour.com\n\nPGA Tour Qualifying School\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates",
"\nThis is a list of the 29 players who earned their 2012 PGA Tour card through Q School in 2011. Note: Roberto Castro and Mark Anderson had already qualified for the PGA Tour by placing in the Top 25 during the 2011 Nationwide Tour season; they did not count among the Top 25 Q school graduates.\n\nPlayers in yellow were 2012 PGA Tour rookies.\n\n2012 Results\n\n*PGA Tour rookie in 2012\nT = Tied \nGreen background indicates the player retained his PGA Tour card for 2013 (won or finished inside the top 125). \nYellow background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2013, but retained conditional status (finished between 126-150). \nRed background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2013 (finished outside the top 150).\n\nWinners on the PGA Tour in 2012\n\nRunners-up on the PGA Tour in 2012\n\nSee also\n2011 Nationwide Tour graduates\n\nReferences\nResults from pgatour.com\n\nPGA Tour Qualifying School\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates"
] |
[
"Freddie King",
"Federal Records",
"When did he work with federal records",
"1960.",
"Did they produce records for him",
"King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: \"Have You Ever Loved a Woman\" backed with \"You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling\" (",
"Did they do any other records",
"From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental \"Hide Away,\"",
"What else is important about federal records",
"During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.",
"Where did they tour",
"I don't know."
] | C_d7f8228c3bf54064bb1e372f6b0897b7_0 | What else did he do during this time period | 6 | What else did Freddie King do during his time with federal records besides touring with R&B artists? | Freddie King | In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King's owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away," which the next year reached number 5 on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard. After their success with "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. CANNOTANSWER | ". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and " | Freddie King (September 3, 1934December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B.B. King, none of whom were blood related). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
Born in Gilmer, Texas, King became acquainted with the guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records, he got signed to Federal Records, and got his break with single "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and instrumental "Hide Away", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with more rhythm and blues and rock oriented producers and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at live performances.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock". He was ranked 25th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 edition of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 15th in the 2011 edition.
Biography
1934–1952: Early life
According to his birth certificate he was named Fred King, and his parents were Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was six years old, his mother and his uncle began teaching him to play the guitar. In autumn 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952 King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children.
1952–1959: Move to Chicago and early works
Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including the guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; the bassist Willie Dixon; the pianist Memphis Slim; and the harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood, Jr., who during these years was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records.
King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records, the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King. A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side, though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon, during a period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them.
1959–1962: Federal Records
In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records. King Records' owner, Syd Nathan, signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut the instrumental "Hide Away", which the next year reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin, and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of the tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard.
After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.
During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
1966–1974: Cotillion, Shelter, RSO Records
King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis, who had recorded a cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs, Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records.
In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing a recording contract with Shelter Records, a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix.
King performed alongside the big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records. In 1974 he recorded Burglar, for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with the guitarists Clapton and George Terry, the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life,
for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group, to complement King.
Death
Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42.
According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told a journalist, "they've got food in them."
Musical style
King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended the younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in a way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia. He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King, later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release).
According to music critic Cub Koda, King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." He later added in an interview with Dan Forte of Guitar World that King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Got a Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'"
King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace the British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of the great postwar blues masters."
Appraisal of recording work
Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years".
In his only review of a King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic".
Discography
Studio albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of studio albums with year, title, record label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
|rowspan="2"|1961
! scope="row" | Freddy King Sings
| King (762)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King
| King (773)
|
|
|-
| 1962
! scope="row" | Boy – Girl – Boy Freddy King, Lulu Reed & Sonny Thompson
| King (777)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1963
! scope="row" | Bossa Nova and Blues
| King (821)
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | Freddy King Goes Surfin'''
| King (856)
|
|
|-
|rowspan="1"|1965
! scope="row" | Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals| King (928)
|
|
|-
| 1969
! scope="row" | Freddie King Is a Blues Master| Cotillion (SD 9004)
|
|
|-
| 1970
! scope="row" | My Feeling for the Blues| Cotillion (SD 9016)
|
|
|-
| 1971
! scope="row" | Getting Ready...| Shelter (SW8905)
|
|
|-
| 1972
! scope="row" | Texas Cannonball| Shelter (SW8913)
|
|
|-
| 1973
! scope="row" | Woman Across the River| Shelter (SW8921)
| 54
| 158
|-
| 1974
! scope="row" | Burglar| RSO (SO4803)
| 53
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | Larger Than Life| RSO (SO4811)
|
|
|}
Selected compilation albums
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of selected compilation albums with year, title, label, and chart peak
! scope="col" width="50" rowspan="2" | Year
! scope="col" width="380" rowspan="2" | Title
! scope="col" width="120" rowspan="2" | Label(Cat. No.)
! scope="col" width="100" colspan="2" | Peak chartposition
|-
! R&B
! US
|-
| 1966
! scope="row" | Vocals and Instrumentals| King (964)
|
|
|-
| 1975
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King| Shelter (SR-2140)
|
|
|-
| 1977
! scope="row" | Freddie King 1934–1976| RSO (RS-1-3025)
|
|
|-
| 1986
! scope="row" | Just Pickin'| Modern Blues (MB2LP-721)
|
|
|-
| 1992
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero: The Influential Early Sessions| Ace (CDCHD 454)
|
|
|-
| 1993
! scope="row" | Hide Away: The Best of Freddie King| Rhino (R2 71510)
|
|
|-
| 2000
! scope="row" | The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years| The Right Stuff (72435-27245-2-9)
|
|
|-
| 2002
! scope="row" | Blues Guitar Hero Volume 2| Ace (CDCHD 861)
|
|
|-
| 2009
! scope="row" | Taking Care of Business| Bear Family (BCD 16979 GK)
|
|
|-
| 2010
! scope="row" | Texas Flyer 1974–1976| Bear Family (BCD 16778 EK)
|
|
|-
|}
Charting singles
References
Bibliography
Busby, Mark (2004). The Southwest. Greenwood Publishing Group. .
Clapton, Eric (2007). Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway Books. Digitized September 4, 2008. .
Corcoran, Michael (2005). All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. University of Texas Press. .
Forte, Dan (2000). "Freddie King". In Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists. Jas Obrecht, ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 275–280. , 978-0-87930-613-7.
Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave; Stephen, Barnard; Perretta, Don (1988). Encyclopedia of Rock. 2nd ed., rev. Schirmer Books. Digitized December 21, 2006. .
Koster, Rick (2000). Texas Music. St. Martin's Press. .
Lawrence, Robb (2008). The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy 1915–1963. Hal Leonard. .
O'Neal, Jim; Van Singel, Amy (2002). The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine. 10th ed. Routledge. .
Pruter, Robert (1992). Chicago Soul''. 5th ed., reprint. University of Illinois Press. .
External links
Official website
Freddy King at 45cat.com
1934 births
1976 deaths
African-American guitarists
African-American male singer-songwriters
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American rhythm and blues musicians
Apex Records artists
Electric blues musicians
Federal Records artists
King Records artists
Lead guitarists
Musicians from Dallas
People from Longview, Texas
RSO Records artists
Burials at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Texas blues musicians
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Guitarists from Texas
People from Gilmer, Texas
P-Vine Records artists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American singers
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"This is the discography of R&B/Hip hop soul trio, Total.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingles\n\n Notes\n Did not chart on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (Billboard rules at the time prevented album cuts from charting). Chart peak listed represents the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.\n\nFeatured singles\n\nGuest appearances\n\nSoundtracks\n\nVideography\n From Total (1996)\n No One Else\n No One Else (Puff Daddy Remix)\n Kissin' You\n Kissin' You / Oh Honey\n Can't You See\n Can't You See (Bad Boy Remix)\n Do You Think About Us\n From Kima, Keisha, and Pam (1998)\n Trippin'\n Sitting Home\n From Soul Food (soundtrack) (1997)\n What About Us? (1997)\n As Guest Artists\n LL Cool J - Loungin' (Who Do U Love?) (1995)\nNotorious B.I.G. \"Hypnotize\" (Pam)\nNotorious B.I.G \"Juicy\" (Keisha & Kima)\n Mase - What You Want (1997)\n Foxy Brown - I Can't (1998)\n Tony Touch - I Wonder Why (He's The Greatest DJ) (2000)\n Cameos\n Craig Mack - Flava In Ya Ear (Remix) (Keisha from Total) (1994)\n The Notorious B.I.G. - One More Chance/Stay With Me (1994)\nSoul For Real - Every Little Thing I Do (1995)\n 112 - Only You - Bad Boy Remix (Keisha from Total) (1996)\n Missy Elliott - The Rain (Supa Supa Fly) (1997)\n Jerome - Too Old For Me (Keisha from Total) (1997)\nLil' Kim - Not Tonight (Remix) (1997)\nThe Lox - We'll Always Love Big Poppa (1998)\nThe Bad Boy Family - You (2001) [Featuring Pam & Keisha]\n\nReferences\n\nTotal discography\nHip hop discographies\nRhythm and blues discographies",
"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"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)"
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | What is the code is red about? | 1 | What is the code is red about? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | true | [
"The Code of Conduct for International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief was drawn up in 1992 by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR) to set ethical standards for organizations involved in humanitarian work. In 1994, the SCHR adopted the code and made the signing of it a condition for membership in the alliance.\n\nFormulation of the code\nAlthough the initiative began with a call by the French Red Cross to the IFRC to draw up a code of conduct relating to humanitarian aid in response to natural disasters, many of the sponsoring agencies had been involved in complex emergencies such as Biafra and Rwanda and were also looking for guidance for operating in the midst of violent conflicts. more than 600 organizations have signed the code.\n\nIn 1995, at the 26th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which included delegates from governments, the Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, the IFRC, and the ICRC, a resolution was passed which “took note of” and “welcomed” the code giving it wide international recognition.\n\nCode articles\n\nPrinciple Commitments of the Code\n\nThe humanitarian imperative comes first; \nAid is given regardless of the race, creed or nationality of the recipients and without adverse distinction of any kind. Aid priorities are calculated on the basis of need alone; \nAid will not be used to further a particular political or religious standpoint; \nWe shall endeavor not to be used as an instrument of government foreign policy; \nWe shall respect culture and custom; \nWe shall attempt to build disaster response on local capacities; \nWays shall be found to involve program beneficiaries in the management of relief aid; \nRelief aid must strive to reduce vulnerabilities to future disaster as well as meeting basic needs;\nWe hold ourselves accountable to both those we seek to assist and those from whom we accept resources; \nIn our information, publicity and advertising activities, we shall recognize disaster victims as dignified human beings, not hopeless objects.\n\nTypes of principles\nThe 10 articles of the code fall into two types: Articles 1 through 4 are core humanitarian principles required for humanitarian response. The remaining articles are more aspirational and are important to improving the quality of both humanitarian and developmental work.\n\nThe humanitarian imperative, based on the principle of humanity, together with other core principles, impartiality, and independence, stress that humanitarian response must be based on need alone. They are derived, from the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Red Cross movement. However the principle of neutrality, which is directly related to the special international role of the Red Cross is not included in the code of conduct. Organizations such as military forces and for-profit companies may deliver assistance to communities affected by disaster, but they are not considered by the humanitarian sector as humanitarian agencies as they do not meet all of the core principles.\n\nArticles, 5 through 10, are derived particularly from experience in development work. Most of the original sponsors have had decades of experience working in the development sector and the articles reflect their experience and commitment. Some development agencies are deeply committed to such an approach while being unable to subscribe to the core principles.\n\nVoluntary nature\nThe code of conduct is a voluntary code which is self-enforced by each of the signatory organizations.\n\nThe code includes two annexes, Annex I, Recommendations to governments of disaster affected countries, and Annex II, Recommendations to donor governments.\n\nApplication of the Code\n\nThe code of conduct is widely used to guide conduct within humanitarian agencies. When the code was drawn up a new term was coined: Non governmental humanitarian agencies (NGHAs), to include the NGOs and the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement which are not NGOs.\n\nThe Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) which is based in the UK has used the code for evaluating humanitarian action, beginning with an evaluation of the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 and covering many subsequent evaluations. The evaluators have used the code as a framework, presenting their findings of agencies' performances in relation to each principle in the Code.\n\nLimits and misinterpretations\n\nEvaluators differ about the usefulness of the code. In the DEC evaluation of the Gujarat earthquake of 2001, the evaluators concluded \n\"The Red Cross Code can be used effectively in evaluation as a measure of quality. In the full report we take each Principle in turn, focus on key issues (as far as possible those specified in the terms of reference) and then examine performance against the Principle. We are able to show which Principles require more attention and thus focus attention on learning.\"\nHowever, because of the lack of indicators of compliance with code they were forced to rate overall performance based on the aggregation of their impressions and judgement rather than on an objective measurement. The evaluators of the DEC Tsunami Crisis Response were unable to do this because of different perceptions of different team members. However, the opening paragraph of the executive summary of the Tsunami evaluation states \n\"Following usual DEC practice, the primary measure of assessment is the Red Cross Code. This is a precise set of standards, signed up to by all DEC members; by using the standards, personal judgement by the evaluators can be kept to a minimum.\"\n\nThis is at odds with the conclusions of Hillhorst's review of the code which states:\n\"The code does not provide ... clear proactive regulation with respect to the provision of humanitarian aid. The code is not regulatory because of its cautious language, with phrases like ‘we shall endeavour to’, instead of ‘we shall’. By using this language, room for manoeuvre is also created for international NGOs with different approaches. The cautious language makes the code comprehensive and appropriate as an instrument for discussing policy and operational matters and dilemmas. It makes the code less useful, though, for NGOs seeking guidance vis-à-vis their actions and for purposes of accountability.\"\n\nHillhorst's paper draws on a survey of code signatories and a conference to review the code, as well as detailed analysis of the code itself.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nCode of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief\nFundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Red Cross movement\nICRC Summary\nJohn Bennett, RPN\nHumanitarian Practice Network\nNick Leader, ODI\nDisasters Emergency Committee\n\nFurther reading\nHilhorst, Dorthea (2005) \"Dead letter or living document? Ten years of the Code of Conduct for disaster relief.\" Disasters 29:4, 351-369\nWalker, Peter (2005) \"Cracking the code: the genesis, use and future of the Code of Conduct.\" Disasters 29 (4), 323-336.\nValid International (2005) \"Independent Evaluation of the DEC Tsunami Crisis Response\"\nHumanitarian Initiatives (2001) \"Independent Evaluation: The DEC Response to the Earthquake in Gujarat\"\n\nWar casualties\nInternational Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement\nCodes of conduct\nRisk management\n1992 documents",
"Mugshot was a social networking website created by Red Hat. Unlike most other social networking websites (which are concerned with advertising), it offered a desktop client and web widgets.\n\nMugshot was meant to facilitate real-world interactions with friends, and make one's normal computer use more social. It provided the functionality of a social network aggregator.\n\nLicensing\nThe software that ran the Mugshot site is free software, and most of the client code is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Various parts of the server code are distributed under the GPL, the Open Software License 3.0, the Apache License, and the MIT License, all of which are free software licences.\n\nFeatures\nSite features included Web Swarm which let users share web links and join in conversations about them, Music Radar, which displayed which songs a user is listening to, and allowed conversations about the song.\n\nMugshot also integrated with many other sites, such as Twitter, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, last.fm and YouTube. Many features were planned, including 'TV Party'.\n\nCurrent status\nFrom April 4 until May 11, 2009, the Mugshot website, mugshot.org, was down and displayed the following message: \"Mugshot is currently not running\". The website no longer resolves.\n\nThe mugshot SVN is still being maintained and hosted by Red Hat. There will be no further updates to the code base from the original development team from Red Hat.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct websites\nRed Hat\nDefunct social networking services"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained."
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | Did it receive good reviews? | 2 | Did the code is red receive good reviews? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | false | [
"Just Reality is the second solo studio album by Jamaican dancehall/reggae recording artist Shabba Ranks. It was released in 1990 via VP Records, and produced by Bobby \"Digital\" Dixon.\n\nThis album did not receive as many good reviews as its predecessor, however, it did include the huge hit \"Wicked Inna Bed\" and the hugely influential track \"Dem Bow\", which went on to be instrumental in the birth of reggaeton as a genre.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1991 albums\nShabba Ranks albums",
"Walter Roy Parkin (18 July 1904 – 18 February 1957) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL).\n\nFamily\nThe son of Walter Parkin (1859–1937) and Annie Helen Parkin (1863–1939), née Cardwell, Walter Roy Parkin was born at Castlemaine, Victoria on 18 July 1904.\n\nRoy Parkin married Jean Casey in Queensland on 30 April 1934.\n\nFootball\nParkin was a full-back from Castlemaine who played all his country football in the same team as former Richmond rover Jack Fincher. Parkin's solitary VFL game was in Round 1 1926 against South Melbourne but his performance did not receive good reviews and he did not play another senior game.\n\nDeath\nRoy Parkin died in Tweed Heads on 18 February 1957.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links \n\t\t\n\n1904 births\n1957 deaths\nAustralian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia)\nRichmond Football Club players"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know."
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article aside from the code is red? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra ( | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra ("
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | What was Time waits for no slave? | 4 | What was Time waits for no slave? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | true | [
"Time Waits for No One may refer to:\n\n \"Time Waits for No One\", a 1970 Neil Sedaka song, popularized by The Friends of Distinction\n \"Time Waits for No One\", a 1974 Rolling Stones song\n Time Waits for No One: Anthology 1971–1977, a 1979 Rolling Stones compilation album named after the song\n \"Time Waits for No One\", a 1980 The Jacksons song from Triumph\n Time Waits for No One, a 1989 album by American singer Mavis Staples\n Time Waits for No One, a 2019 re-released remix for the 1986 Freddie Mercury song \"Time\"\n \"Time Waits for No One\", a song from the 1944 musical film Shine On, Harvest Moon",
"Time Waits for No Slave is the thirteenth studio album by the British grindcore band Napalm Death. It was released through Century Media on 23 January 2009.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nNapalm Death\n Mark Greenway – vocals\n Mitch Harris – guitar, vocals\n Shane Embury – bass, vocals\n Danny Herrera – drums\n\nProduction\n Napalm Death – arrangement, producer\n Russ Russell – producer, engineering, mixing, mastering\n Mick Kenney – outside illustration\n Kevin Sharp – inside illustration\n Carsten Drescher – layout\n Hugo Chevalier – band photo (Herrera)\n ccphotoart.biz – band photos (other band members)\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n\n2009 albums\nNapalm Death albums\nCentury Media Records albums"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (",
"What was Time waits for no slave?",
"Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album,"
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | Did it do well? | 5 | Did Time waits for no slave do well? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | false | [
"This One's for You is the sixth album by R&B crooner Teddy Pendergrass. It was released just after a bad car accident Pendergrass was involved in, which left him paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury. The album did not do as well as his previous albums did on the Billboard 200, peaking at only #59, but it did do well on the R&B album chart, reaching #6. Only one single was released, \"I Can't Win for Losing\", which peaked at only #32 on the R&B charts.\n\nTrack listing\n \"I Can't Win for Losing\" 4:16 (Victor Carstarphen, Gene McFadden, John Whitehead)\n \"This One's for You\" 6:18 (Barry Manilow, Marty Panzer)\n \"Loving You Was Good\" 3:35 (LeRoy Bell, Casey James)\n \"This Gift of Life\" 4:27 (Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff)\n \"Now Tell Me That You Love Me\" 5:15 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"It's Up to You (What You Do With Your Life)\" 5:37 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"Don't Leave Me out Along the Road\" 3:34 (Richard Roebuck)\n \"Only to You\" 3:53 (Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson)\n\nReferences\n\n1982 albums\nTeddy Pendergrass albums\nAlbums produced by Kenneth Gamble\nAlbums produced by Leon Huff\nAlbums produced by Thom Bell\nAlbums produced by Ashford & Simpson\nAlbums arranged by Bobby Martin\nAlbums recorded at Sigma Sound Studios\nPhiladelphia International Records albums",
"Follow Me is the second album of Dutch singer Do.\n\nIt did well in the Netherlands, debuting at #8 in the Mega Top 100 (album chart).\n\nAlbum information\nAfter her successful debut album Do she began working on her second album with her best friend and musical partner Glenn Corneille. They made a basis for the next album but Glenn Corneille died in a car disaster. However, Do needed to go on, so she started again where she left off.\n\nThe album contains 12 songs. Do co-wrote 3 songs; Love Me, Tune Into Me and When Everything is Gone. It features several different music genres, such as Pop, Jazz, Gospel and Country.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n.\n\n2006 albums\nDo (singer) albums\nSony BMG albums"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (",
"What was Time waits for no slave?",
"Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album,",
"Did it do well?",
"I don't know."
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | Are there other albums involved in this time frame? | 6 | Are there other albums involved in 2004- 2011 aside from time waits for no slave and the code is red? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | on 15 September 2006 | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | true | [
"This is a discography for the Scottish new wave band Aztec Camera.\n\nAztec Camera had success during the 1980s and 1990s with six hit studio albums and are most recognised internationally for their hit single \"Somewhere in My Heart\".\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nEPs\n\nSingles\n\nCover versions\nVan Halen: \"Jump\" (released in 1985) \nBlue Orchids: \"Bad Education\" (released in 1987)\n\"The Red Flag\" (traditional song released in 1988) \nEdwyn Collins: \"Consolation Prize\" (released in 1990) \nCyndi Lauper: \"True Colors\" (released in 1990) \nCole Porter: \"Do I Love You?\" (released in 1990)\nAmen Corner: \"(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice\" (released in 1992)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\nRoddy Frame on AED\n\"Killermont Street\" – a fan site for Roddy Frame and Aztec Camera\n\nDiscographies of British artists\nRock music group discographies\nNew wave discographies",
"Overcompleteness is a concept from linear algebra that is widely used in mathematics, computer science, engineering, and statistics (usually in the form of overcomplete frames). It was introduced by R. J. Duffin and A. C. Schaeffer in 1952.\n\nFormally, a subset of the vectors of a Banach space , sometimes called a \"system\", is complete if every element in can be approximated arbitrarily well in norm by finite linear combinations of elements in . A complete system is additionally overcomplete if there exists a which can be removed from the system while maintaining completeness (i.e., ). In this sense, the system contains more vectors than necessary to be complete, hence \"overcomplete\".\n\nIn research areas such as signal processing and function approximation, overcompleteness can help researchers to achieve a more stable, more robust, or more compact decomposition than using a basis.\n\nRelation between overcompleteness and frames\n\nOvercompleteness is usually discussed as a property of overcomplete frames. The theory of frame originates in a paper by Duffin and Schaeffer on non-harmonic Fourier series. The frame is defined to be a set of non-zero vectors such that for an arbitrary ,\n\n \n\nwhere denotes the inner product, and are positive constants called bounds of the frame. When and can be chosen such that , the frame is called a tight frame.\n\nIt can be seen that .\nAn example of frame can be given as follows.\nLet each of and be an orthonormal basis of , then\n\n \n\nis a frame of with bounds .\n\nLet be the frame operator,\n\n \n\nA frame that is not a Riesz basis, in which case it consists of a set of functions more than a basis, is said to be overcomplete. In this case, given , it can have different decompositions based on the frame. The frame given in the example above is an overcomplete frame.\n\nWhen frames are used for function estimation, one may want to compare the performance of different frames. The parsimony of the approximating functions by different frames may be considered as one way to compare their performances.\n\nGiven a tolerance and a frame in , for any function , define the set of all approximating functions that satisfy \n\n \n\nThen let\n\n \n\n indicates the parsimony of utilizing frame to approximate . Different may have different based on the hardness to be approximated with elements in the frame. The worst case to estimate a function in is defined as\n\n \n\nFor another frame , if , then frame is better than frame at level . And if there exists a that for each , we have , then is better than broadly.\n\nOvercomplete frames are usually constructed in three ways.\n Combine a set of bases, such as wavelet basis and Fourier basis, to obtain an overcomplete frame.\n Enlarge the range of parameters in some frame, such as in Gabor frame and wavelet frame, to have an overcomplete frame.\n Add some other functions to an existing complete basis to achieve an overcomplete frame.\n\nAn example of an overcomplete frame is shown below. The collected data is in a two-dimensional space, and in this case a basis with two elements should be able to explain all the data. However, when noise is included in the data, a basis may not be able to express the properties of the data. If an overcomplete frame with four elements corresponding to the four axes in the figure is used to express the data, each point would be able to have a good expression by the overcomplete frame.\n\nThe flexibility of the overcomplete frame is one of its key advantages when used in expressing a signal or approximating a function. However, because of this redundancy, a function can have multiple expressions under an overcomplete frame. When the frame is finite, the decomposition can be expressed as\n\n \n\nwhere is the function one wants to approximate, is the matrix containing all the elements in the frame, and is the coefficients of under the representation of . Without any other constraint, the frame will choose to give with minimal norm in . Based on this, some other properties may also be considered when solving the equation, such as sparsity. So different researchers have been working on solving this equation by adding other constraints in the objective function. For example, a constraint minimizing 's norm in may be used in solving this equation. This should be equivalent to the Lasso regression in statistics community. Bayesian approach is also used to eliminate the redundancy in an overcomplete frame. Lweicki and Sejnowski proposed an algorithm for overcomplete frame by viewing it as a probabilistic model of the observed data. Recently, the overcomplete Gabor frame has been combined with bayesian variable selection method to achieve both small norm expansion coefficients in and sparsity in elements.\n\nExamples of overcomplete frames\nIn modern analysis in signal processing and other engineering field, various overcomplete frames are proposed and used. Here two common used frames, Gabor frames and wavelet frames, are introduced and discussed.\n\nGabor frames\nIn usual Fourier transformation, the function in time domain is transformed to the frequency domain. However, the\ntransformation only shows the frequency property of this function and loses its information in the time domain. If a\nwindow function , which only has nonzero value in a small interval, is multiplied with the original\nfunction before operating the Fourier transformation, both the information in time and frequency domains may remain\nat the chosen interval. When a sequence of translation of is used in the transformation, the\ninformation of the function in time domain are kept after the transformation.\n\nLet operators\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\nA Gabor frame (named after Dennis Gabor and also called Weyl-Heisenberg frame) in is defined as the form , where and is a fixed function. However, not for every and \nforms a frame on . For example, when , it is not a frame for . When , is possible to be a frame, in which case it is a Riesz basis. So the possible situation for being an overcomplete frame is .\nThe Gabor family is also a frame and sharing the same frame bounds as \n\nDifferent kinds of window function may be used in Gabor frame. Here examples of three window functions are shown, and the condition for the corresponding Gabor system being a frame is shown as\nfollows.\n\n(1) , is a frame when\n\n(2) , is a frame when\n\n(3) , where is the indicator function. The situation for\n to be a frame stands as follows.\n\n1) or , not a frame\n\n2) and , not a frame\n\n3) , is a frame\n\n4) and is an irrational, and , is a frame\n\n5) , and are relatively primes, , not a frame\n\n6) and , where and be a natural number,\nnot a frame\n\n7) , , , where is the biggest integer not exceeding , is a frame.\n\nThe above discussion is a summary of chapter 8 in.\n\nWavelet frames\n\nA collection of wavelet usually refers to a set of functions based on \n\n \n\nThis forms an orthonormal basis for . However, when can take values in\n, the set represents an overcomplete frame and called undecimated wavelet basis. In general case, a\nwavelet frame is defined as a frame for of the form\n\n \n\nwhere , , and .\nThe upper and lower bound of this frame can be computed as follows.\nLet be the Fourier transform for \n\n \n\nWhen are fixed, define\n\n \n\n \n\nThen\n\n \n\n \n\nFurthermore, when\n\n \n\n , for all odd integers \n\nthe generated frame is a tight frame.\n\nThe discussion in this section is based on chapter 11 in.\n\nApplications\nOvercomplete Gabor frames and Wavelet frames have been used in various research area including signal detection, image representation, object recognition, noise reduction, sampling theory, operator theory, harmonic analysis, nonlinear sparse approximation, pseudodifferential operators, wireless communications, geophysics, quantum computing, and filter banks.\n\nReferences\n\nLinear algebra\nMathematical analysis"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (",
"What was Time waits for no slave?",
"Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album,",
"Did it do well?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there other albums involved in this time frame?",
"on 15 September 2006"
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | What was the name of that album? | 7 | What was the name of the album on 15 September 2006? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | Smear Campaign | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | true | [
"White Witch is the title of the second studio album by the group Andrea True Connection. It was released in 1977. The album had two singles: and \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\" and \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\". This was the last album released by the group and the vocalist Andrea True would release a new album as a solo release only in 1980.\n\nBackground and production\nAfter the success of her first album and the gold-certified single More, More, More, the band begun to prepeare for their second release. The album production included studio musicians with a new band assembled for the tour, the second line-up, which included future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, it was also produce by the disco pioneers Michael Zager and Jerry Love.\n\nSingles\nThe first single of the album was \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\", it was released in 1977 and became True's second biggest hit, reaching No. 27 on Billboard's pop chart, and #4 on the U.S. club chart, it also peaked #89 in the Canadian RPM's chart. \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" was released as the second and last single of the album (and also of the group) in 1978 and reached #9 on the U.S. club chart, #34 in the UK and #56 on the Billboard Hot 100\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe album received mixed reviews from music critics. Alex Henderson from the Allmusic website gave the album two and a half stars out of five in a mixed review which he wrote that \"while White Witch isn't a bad album, it falls short of the excellence her first album, More, More, More.\" He also stated that there are a few gems in the album \"including the Michael Zager-produced \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" and the exuberant, Gregg Diamond-produced \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\"\" according to him they're both \"exercises in unapologetically campy fun.\" He concluded that the album \"LP is strictly for diehard disco collectors.\"\n\nTrack listing\nsource:\n\nReferences\n\n1977 albums\nAndrea True albums\nBuddah Records albums",
"Third Eye Open is a 1992 album by American funk/rock supergroup Hardware. Hardware consists of lead guitarist Stevie Salas, P-Funk bassist Bootsy Collins, and drummer Buddy Miles, formerly of the Band of Gypsys. The album was produced by Bill Laswell and Salas, and was the first release to be part of Laswell's Black Arc Series, which includes Lord of the Harvest by Zillatron, Out of the Dark by O.G. Funk, and Under the 6 by Slave Master.\n\nAlbum history\nWhen the album was first released in Japan on the Polystar label, the band was called The Third Eye and the name of the album was \"Hardware\". When the album secured distribution in the U.S., it was found that another band had owned the name \"The Third Eye\". To avoid any further legal hassles, it was opted that the title of the album and the name of band would simply be switched, thus the name of the band would be Hardware and the title of the album became Third Eye Open.\n\nThe song \"Leakin'\" is a version of a track that appeared on Collins' 1988 album What's Bootsy Doin'?, which featured Salas playing guitar. On this album, the song is credited to Salas, whereas the previous version is credited to Collins, George Clinton and Trey Stone.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nStevie Salas – guitars, vocals\nBootsy Collins – space bass, vocals\nBuddy Miles – drums, fuzz bass, vocals\nGeorge Clinton, Gary \"Mudbone\" Cooper, Bernard Fowler – background vocals\nDavid Friendly, Vince McClean, Matt Stein – digital bollocks\n\nHardware (band) albums\n1992 albums\nAlbums produced by Bill Laswell\nRykodisc albums"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (",
"What was Time waits for no slave?",
"Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album,",
"Did it do well?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there other albums involved in this time frame?",
"on 15 September 2006",
"What was the name of that album?",
"Smear Campaign"
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | What do you find to be the most interesting fact? | 8 | What do you find to be the most interesting fact about Smear Campaign? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | true | [
"The Planewalker's Handbook is an accessory for the Planescape campaign setting in the 2nd edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published in 1996.\n\nContents\nThe Planewalker's Handbook aims to be a practical guide for Planescape players, pulling facts from many different sources as an encyclopedia of different topics in the multiverse.\n\nPublication history\nThe Planewalker's Handbook was published by TSR, Inc. in 1996.\n\nReception\nTrenton Webb reviewed The Planewalker's Handbook for Arcane magazine, rating it a 9 out of 10 overall. He quoted the song \"it ain't what you do but the way that you do it... that's what gets results!\" and noted \"It's one of life's great quirks that trashy lines often contain valuable nuggets of philosophy. The lyrics of Fun Boy Three/Bananarama's hit is a case in point, because it encompasses the core ethic of The Planewalker's Handbook, A practical guide for players in the multiverse, it aims to teach both planars and primes that the secret of survival 'ain't who you are, it's what you know'.\" Webb continued: \"And while The Planewalker's Handbook doesn't actually contain that much new information, the 'old' information it contains is clearly presented, logically ordered and well explained. Pulling facts from many different Planescape sources, the Walker's guide works perfectly as a beginner's introduction to the Planes. Yet the encyclopedic range of topics it deals with means that even old-hands will find there are some facts they didn't know and a few that they plain misunderstood the first time round.\" He added: \"What makes The Planewalker's Handbook, truly great, though, is the fact that it lies to you. [...] On the jacket it claims to be a survival guide. And while to a lesser extent this is true, its real aim is to keep you alive just long enough to die somewhere really interesting. Players are fairly and squarely warned against the kind of innocent (but stupid) actions that will get them killed within seconds of arrival in Sigil. But this guide is so crammed with juicy hints about what the weirder Planes hold that beginners and experienced players alike will not be able to resist leaping headlong into even greater peril in an even more inhospitable place.\" Webb commented that \"Codifying the sprawling worlds, peoples and powers of the Planescape multiverse is no mean feat. Essentially a Player's Guide, TPH'''s sense of style, graphic wit and Planescape's own brand of mind-bending lunacy means that, even if you know most of the facts it contains, the book remains massively readable. Written with precision, it progresses from the basic 'what are the planes and how to travel between them', through the factions of Sigil, to Planewalker kits and the kit they carry. So that by the time you get to the new 'Power of Belief' you're fully prepped and eager to tackle some of the fearsome mysteries of the system.\" He stated that \"If your group is playing a Planescape campaign this is an essential purchase. If you're a referee thinking of trying a new system, buy this before the boxed set to get a real feel of just how wonderfully bizarre multiplanar adventures can be. In fact the only people who shouldn't consider getting hold of The Planewalkers Handbook are roleplaying virgins, and that's simply because Planescape is such a fast and loose system that a certain foundation of 'normal terrestrial adventures' help to keep the whole thing in perspective.\" Webb concluded the review by saying that \"Because, as Kenny Rodgers once said, 'you've got to know when to walk away and know when to hide,' and that's the fun of Planescape - and it's what The Planewalker's Handbook aims to hammer home to berks before it's too late!\"\n\nReviewsDragon'' #236\n\nReferences\n\n1996 books\nPlanescape",
"According to Ralph Kimball, in a data warehouse, a degenerate dimension is a dimension key in the fact table that does not have its own dimension table, because all the interesting attributes have been placed in analytic dimensions. The term \"degenerate dimension\" was originated by Ralph Kimball.\n\nAs Bob Becker says:\n\nOther uses of the term\nAlthough most writers and practitioners use the term degenerate dimension correctly, it is very easy to find misleading definitions in online and printed sources. For example, the Oracle FAQ defines a degenerate dimension as a \"data dimension that is stored in the fact table rather than a separate dimension table. This eliminates the need to join to a dimension table. You can use the data in the degenerate dimension to limit or 'slice and dice' your fact table measures.\"\n\nThis common interpretation implies that it is good dimensional modeling practice to place dimension attributes in the fact table, as long as you call them a degenerate dimension. This is not the case; the concept of degenerate dimension was developed by Kimball to support a specific, well-defined exception to the otherwise ironclad rule that dimension attributes are always pulled out into dimension tables.\n\nSee also\n data warehouse\n dimension table\n fact table\n measure (data warehouse)\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n Kimball, Ralph et al. (1998); The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, p17. Pub. Wiley. .\n Kimball, Ralph (1996); The Data Warehouse Toolkit, p. 100. Pub. Wiley. .\n\nExternal links\n \n\nData warehousing\nMetadata"
] |
[
"Napalm Death",
"The Code Is Red... to Time Waits for No Slave (2004-2011)",
"What is the code is red about?",
"The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained.",
"Did it receive good reviews?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (",
"What was Time waits for no slave?",
"Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album,",
"Did it do well?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there other albums involved in this time frame?",
"on 15 September 2006",
"What was the name of that album?",
"Smear Campaign",
"What do you find to be the most interesting fact?",
"The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious."
] | C_1c93816f29aa4c889ff3aa3793569d09_1 | Do a lot of their lyrics contain meanings like this? | 9 | Do a lot of Smear Campaign lyrics contain meanings like criticism of government? | Napalm Death | In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour. Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm. In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife In Your Back"). CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands in 1981. While none of its original members remain in the group since December 1986, the lineup of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera has remained consistent through most of the band's career since 1992's Utopia Banished, although, from 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado as the replacement of one-time guitarist Bill Steer; following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece rather than replace him.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs and sociopolitical lyrics. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal community. According to the Guinness World Records, their song "You Suffer" is the shortest song ever recorded, at only 1.316 seconds long.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before choosing Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on lead vocals and bass, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals.
The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made 4 demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a 4-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge - drums, Bullen - vocals, bass and guitar, Graham Robertson - guitar and bass, and Damien Errington - guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing 2 concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw (ex-Autism) joined on bass. The 4-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's 5th demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge.
The group recorded a 6th demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a 7th recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play the drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the band had to look for new members. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the bands, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in Carcass. The band asked a friend, Coventrian (Lee Dorrian), to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the band (he had organised a number of concerts for the band), even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass.
The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7" with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration.
A follow-up release to "Enslavement..." came in the form of the six song 12" EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featuring fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994)
In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band, exhibiting blast beats and slower tempos. Death metal was a greater influence on Corruption than previous records. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12" LP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12", the split 7" with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.
Drummer Mick Harris - the only remaining member of the Scum lineup - eventually left Napalm Death due to conflicts with the rest of the group over changes in its stylistic direction. Danny Herrera, a close friend of Jesse Pintado, was brought in as the new drummer. Herrera's drumming style has been noted for its uniqueness; being described as "Euroblast", a variant of blast beat in which simultaneous eighth notes are played on the ride cymbal and kick drum, with alternate eighth notes added on the snare drum. The addition of Herrera would be the last major line-up change of the band, save for Jesse Pintado's future absence, which has yet to be filled (and vocalist Phil Vane never recorded with the band).
Napalm Death released the album Utopia Banished in 1992, produced by Colin Richardson. This release was a kind of "return to the roots" - grindcore. After recording The World Keeps Turning EP, the band toured Europe with Dismember and Obituary on the "Campaign for Musical Destruction" tour. They then toured the US with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick of It All. The proceeds of Napalm Death's 1993 EP Nazi Punks Fuck Off were donated to anti-fascist organisations.
Their EP, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, was inspired by Napalm Death touring South Africa during 1993, which was particularly controversial given that the band faced a lot of opposition from many white supremacists following the end of Apartheid.
The band remixed the track "Mind of a Razor" by London-based hip hop crew Gunshot. The remixed version of the track appeared on the EP of the same name in 1992.
Thereafter, they went to the studio and recorded Fear, Emptiness, Despair, which was released on 31 May 1994. The album represented a stylistic transition for Napalm Death. Fear, Emptiness, Despair maintained the complex music structures of their previous albums Utopia Banished and Harmony Corruption, but there was a greater emphasis placed on incorporating elements of groove into the band's style, resulting in a wider use of mid-paced music. Bassist Shane Embury recounts that Helmet and their album Strap It On influenced the band's style at the time, as they did many other heavy metal bands during the 1990s. Live concerts with Entombed, Obituary and Machine Head followed the album's release.
Diatribes, Greenway's departure and return (1995–1999)
Their EP Greed Killing was released through Earache in December 1995, followed by the album Diatribes in January 1996. There was greater animosity between the band during this time, with a rift between Greenway and the remainder of the band, especially over the band's stylistic transition and the interference of background presences in the band, exemplifying the former when he stated that the band were "letting go of what made the band special". Greenway was hence expelled from the band later in 1996, and went to record with fellow grindcore act Extreme Noise Terror (ENT) on their release Damage 381. Greenway has stated that following his expulsion he was "devastated" and did not want to commit to ENT in fear of a repetition of the events that took place within Napalm Death.
ENT's vocalist Phil Vane replaced Greenway in Napalm Death. Alas, Shane Embury stated that Vane "couldn't pull off what was required. It was a hard day when I had to pull Phil aside and tell him it just wasn't working. We had been too much into doing our own thing to acknowledge all of the parts that made the Napalm machine tick. I quickly made the call and asked Barney if he would rejoin—time away certainly gave all of us the chance for reflection, regrets and hopes for the future. He was surprised by the material, as it was heavy and some of the songs were fast—I don't know what he really expected us to do!". Following Vane's departure, Greenway returned and the band released the album Inside the Torn Apart on 3 June 1997. An EP and music video were released for the album's track "Breed to Breathe" on 17 November 1997.
The album Words from the Exit Wound followed this, being released on 26 October 1998. The album was their last to be produced by Colin Richardson, who Embury believes hindered the album's creation, ultimately affecting the album's success. Embury has stated that bands such as Nasum influenced the album, and in Embury's view, this album represented a turning point in the band's sound, stating "it was also a turning point in us moving towards rediscovering our roots." Embury also mentioned that following the album's release, the band found it hard to tour due to restricted budgets from their record label, but Cradle of Filth and Nick Barker were able to alleviate this problem.
In 1999 the band made an appearance on Chris Evans' TFI Friday, playing three songs on a set lasting 59 seconds.
Departure from Earache and the departure of Pintado (2000–2004)
The band acrimoniously departed from Earache Records following Words from the Exit Wound and later released Enemy of the Music Business on the record label, Dream Catcher, on 25 September 2000; which showed the band's anger with the music industry and especially with Earache, whilst also incorporating a greater grindcore influence than on their previous few albums. The album was produced jointly by Simon Efemey and Russ Russell, the latter of whom has since been a long-time collaborator with Napalm Death.
Order of the Leech continued with the previous album's style, being released on 21 October 2002, also being produced jointly by Efemey and Russell. In 2003, Embury and Hererra formed the side-project Venomous Concept with Kevin Sharp and Buzz Osborne, and that group has since released four albums. In 2004, Napalm Death recorded a covers album called Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, the sequel to their earlier covers EP. It contains covers of old hardcore punk and heavy metal bands, including Cryptic Slaughter, Massacre, Kreator, Sepultura, Siege and Discharge. Due to personal problems, Jesse Pintado did not play on either Order of the Leech or Leaders Not Followers: Part 2, and left the band in early 2004. Nevertheless, Pintado stated that he left because he grew tired of Napalm Death and wanted to start something new. The two guitars that you hear is Mitch double-tracking.
The Code Is Red... and Time Waits for No Slave (2005–2010)
In April 2005, their next album The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code was released. It features guest appearances from Jeffrey Walker (Carcass), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed vocalist) and Jello Biafra (formerly of Dead Kennedys, and Lard among many other bands). The album continued the band's progressive approach to their brutal brand of extreme metal, with their trademark grindcore sound retained. Also in 2005, Embury and Herrera joined the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh for one tour.
Napalm Death finished recording their follow-up album titled Smear Campaign in June 2006, and it was released on 15 September 2006 to strong reviews from fans and critics alike. The main lyrical focus is criticism of the United States Government and other governments who are strongly religious. The album features a guest appearance by Anneke van Giersbergen, vocalist for the Dutch rock band The Gathering. There is a limited edition digipak version of Smear Campaign, which has two new songs, "Call That an Option?" and "Atheist Runt". They played a series of headline shows in support of the release including the Koko in Camden with Gutworm.
In early 2006 Napalm Death headlined a tour with Kreator, A Perfect Murder, and Undying. On 27 August 2006, Jesse Pintado died in a hospital in the Netherlands due to liver failure, prompting Mitch Harris to express his sadness at the loss of someone he thought of as "a brother" on the band's official website. After the Smear Campaign tour, the band did a 2007 "World Domination Tour". Bassist Shane Embury is currently working on a project with Mick Kenney of Anaal Nathrakh, their work together will be released on FETO Records at the end of 2007. In November 2008, Napalm Death's fourteenth studio album, entitled Time Waits for No Slave, leaked onto the internet; it was officially released on 23 January 2009. Similar to Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave also had a digipak version containing two extra songs ("Suppressed Hunger" and "Omnipresent Knife in Your Back").
Utilitarian and Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2011–2016)
In February 2011, Napalm Death appeared in an episode of E4's Skins. Napalm Death entered Parlour Studio in Kettering, with producer Russ Russell to begin working on a new album. Also in 2011, they recorded the single "Legacy Was Yesterday". Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album, Utilitarian, on 27 February 2012 in Europe and 28 February in North America via Century Media. In March 2012, Napalm Death headlined the Metal Mayhem IV festival organized by "Defenders of Metal" in Nepal. This was the first time Napalm Death played in Nepal.
Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, on 22 March 2013. The show was eventually cancelled at the Victoria and Albert Museum, due to concerns that the noise levels could damage parts of the museum. The show was relocated to the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, and was performed on 29 November 2013. The performance was a collaboration with ceramicist and Victoria and Albert Artist in Residence Keith Harrison. The show featured 10 large-scale wooden speakers filled with liquid clay that were left to solidify. When the band began to play, the clay inside the speakers was expected to vibrate, causing the speakers to crack and eventually explode. The actual performance was considered anticlimactic, as the speakers withstood the sonic vibration.
In April 2014, the band released a cover of the Cardiacs' song "To Go Off and Things" via Bandcamp. All proceeds from the single went towards Cardiacs frontman Tim Smith's recovery from a simultaneous heart attack/stroke he suffered in 2008. The band announced on 5 November 2014, via Facebook that due to an illness in the family, Mitch Harris would be taking a hiatus from the band, to be replaced by various guitarists on their tour. Napalm Death's sixteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, was released on 26 January 2015. On 4 July, a Nepal Charity Event track from the Apex Predator sessions called "Earth Wire" was released on their page.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2017–present)
In August 2017, it was announced that Napalm Death entered the studio to begin recording their sixteenth studio album for an early 2018 release. In September, frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway spoke to Australia's Sticks for Stones condemning the announcement and stated that no material was being worked on at the moment but was in the "preliminary stages". He then said that it would not be released until later next year. In an interview at Download Festival in June 2018, Greenway confirmed that guitarist Mitch Harris would appear on the new album, which was not expected to be released until 2019, but did not know if he would tour with them again. Bassist Shane Embury confirmed in a March 2019 interview with Extreme Metal Festival News that Harris "did come over and record guitars on the new record" and Greenway has "nearly recorded all his vocal parts." He added, however, that the album will not be released before early 2020.
Napalm Death (along with Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Testament) opened for Slayer on their final North American tour in the summer of 2018. In October 2019, Shane Embury announced that he would be unable to join the band during their North American Tour. Vernon Blake was announced as substitute live bassist.
An EP titled Logic Ravaged by Brute Force was released on 7 February 2020. The band released their sixteenth studio album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, in September 2020.
Political views
The band espouse anarchism, humanism, socialism and animal rights.
Napalm Death congratulated the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, a fan of the band, on their Facebook fan page; however, after the Bali Nine and the Lindsay Sandiford case, he came under fire from the band, as well as many others within the metal scene, after their appeals for clemency were ignored.
Inspired by the band's political stance, Professor Simon Springer wrote the conclusion to his 2016 book, The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea, by incorporating as many Napalm Death song and album titles into the text as he could.
Members
Current members
Shane Embury – bass, backing vocals (1987–present)
Danny Herrera – drums (1991–present)
Mark "Barney" Greenway – lead vocals (1989–1996, 1997–present)
Mitch Harris – guitars, backing vocals (1990–present)
Touring musicians
John Cooke – guitars, backing vocals (2014–2015, 2015–present)
Vernon Blake – bass (2015, 2019–2020)
Former members
Stephen Beddows - Drums*
Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen – lead vocals, bass (1981–1986)
Miles "Rat" Ratledge – drums (1981–1985)
Simon "Si O" Oppenheimer – guitars (1981–1982)
Graham "Grayhard" Robertson – guitars, bass (1982–1985)
Daryl "Daz F" Fedeski – guitars (1982)
Finbar "Fin" Quinn – bass (1983–1984)
Marian Williams – lead vocals (1984)
Damien Errington – guitars (1985)
Justin Broadrick – guitars, backing and lead vocals (1985–1986)
Peter "P-Nut" Shaw – bass (1985)
Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991)
Jim Whitely – bass (1986–1987)
Frank Healy – guitars (1986)
Bill Steer – guitars (1987–1989)
Lee Dorrian – lead vocals (1987–1989)
Jesse Pintado – guitars (1989–2004; died 2006)
Phil Vane – lead vocals (1996–1997; died 2011)
Erik Burke - guitars (2015)
Jesper Liveröd – bass (2017)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Scum (1987)
From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Harmony Corruption (1990)
Utopia Banished (1992)
Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)
Diatribes (1996)
Inside the Torn Apart (1997)
Words from the Exit Wound (1998)
Enemy of the Music Business (2000)
Order of the Leech (2002)
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code (2005)
Smear Campaign (2006)
Time Waits for No Slave (2009)
Utilitarian (2012)
Apex Predator – Easy Meat (2015)
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)
Society and culture
Skins
In the E4 teen comedy-drama Skins, the seasons 5-6 character Rich Hardbeck (Alex Arnold) is a metalhead whose self-proclaimed favourite band is Napalm Death. In the show's fifth season finale, a special appearance from Napalm Death's Mark "Barney" Greenway featured a scene in which he and Rich have a heart-to-heart. Regarding the band's appearance, Barney stated, "One thing that bothers me about TV is the way that teenagers are portrayed. It's down to the f--king Daily Mail's war on teenagers. They stigmatize young kids and it's bulls--t. The thing I like about 'Skins' is it gives a genuine perspective on growing up. That's why we agreed to do this show."
Notes
References
Barcinski, André & Gomes, Silvio (1999). Sepultura: Toda a História. São Paulo: Ed. 34.
Mudrian, Albert (2004). Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
External links
1981 establishments in England
Century Media Records artists
British crust and d-beat groups
Deathgrind musical groups
Earache Records artists
English death metal musical groups
English grindcore musical groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Musical quartets
Political music groups | false | [
"This is a list of minor planets which have been officially named by the Working Group Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The list consists of partial pages, each covering a number range of 1000 bodies citing the source after each minor planet was named for. An overview of all existing partial pages is given in section .\n\nAmong the hundreds of thousands of numbered minor planets only a small fraction have received a name so far. , there are 23,081 named minor planets out of a total of more than 600,000 numbered ones . Most of these bodies are named for people, in particular astronomers, as well as figures from mythology and fiction. Many minor planets are also named after places such cities, towns and villages, mountains and volcanoes; after rivers, observatories, as well as organizations, clubs and astronomical societies. Some are named after animals and plants. A few minor planets are named after exotic entities such as supercomputers or have an unknown origin .\n\nThe first few thousand minor planets have all been named, with the near-Earth asteroid (4596) 1981 QB currently being the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet. The first 3 pages in the below table contain 1,000 named entries each. The first 13 and 33 pages contain at least 500 and 100 named entries each, respectively. The first range to contain no entries is 258001–259000. There are also several name conflicts with other astronomical objects, mostly with planetary satellites and among themselves. \n\nFollowing a proposal of the discovering astronomer, new minor planet names are approved and published by IAU's WGSBN several times a year. The WGSBN applies a set of rules for naming minor planets. These range from syntax restrictions to non-offensive meanings. Over the years the rules have changed several times. In the beginning, for example, most minor planets were named after female characters from Greek and Roman mythology.\n\nIndex \n\nThis is an overview of all existing partial lists on the meanings of minor planets (MoMP). Each table covers 100,000 minor planets, with each cell representing a specific partial list of 1,000 sequentially numbered bodies. Grayed out cells do not yet contain any citations for the corresponding number range. For an introduction, see .\n\nMeanings from 1 to 100,000\n\nMeanings from 100,001 to 200,000\n\nMeanings from 200,001 to 300,000\n\nMeanings from 300,001 to 400,000\n\nMeanings from 400,001 to 500,000\n\nMeanings from 500,001 to 600,000\n\nMeanings from 600,001 to 700,000\n\nSee also \n List of minor planets\n List of named minor planets (alphabetical)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Asteroids discovered at the observatory of San Marcello Pistoiese in Italy\n Asteroids discovered by Uppsala astronomers\n Asteroids honoring people associated with Cornell Department of astronomy\n Asteroids named after members of staff and graduates of the Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland\n Asteroids with Canadian Connections\n Asteroids with a Hamburg connection\n Hungarian asteroids\n In Our Skies journalistic article on asteroid nomenclature\n Institute of Applied Astronomy's list of (accented) names\n Kleť Numbered Minor Planets\n List of \"Dutch\" asteroids (in Dutch)\n Planetary Society asteroids\n The Ceres Connection (asteroids named after students)\n\nSome systematic sources of citations are:\n The database of the Minor Planet Center can be searched: http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/\n The JPL Small-Body Database Browser: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi\n The Minor Planet Center has lists of discovery circumstances for numbered minor planets which link to a script at the Harvard University Center for Astronomy MPES (Minor Planet Ephemeris Service) that displays citations.\n The Minor Planet Center also provides a search engine allowing a search of its database from your browser.\nIn the first two cases you need only modify the last argument of the address to the name or number of the minor planet. The lists of discovery circumstances are split into groups of 5000 minor planets, each containing links for individual named minor planets that access the script displaying citations.\n\n *\nmeanings",
"SongMeanings is a music website that encourages users to discuss and comment on the underlying meanings and messages of individual songs. As of May 2015, the website contains over 110,000 artists, 1,000,000 lyrics, 14,000 albums, and 530,000 members.\n\nHistory\nSongMeanings was created by Michael Schiano and Brian Adams. Schiano states that the website's objective is to discuss \"factual song meanings, personal experiences through the song, or even just their dismay for a song\". The website was created in late 2000 by Schiano after he was inspired by a debate surrounding the meaning behind music group Ben Folds Five's song, \"Brick\".\n\nIn September 2011, SongMeanings agreed to terms with LyricFind to provide licensed lyrics. This agreement makes SongMeanings a legal entity amongst the hundreds of illegal lyrics sites.\n\nIn April 2012, TechCrunch announced a partnership between The Echo Nest and SongMeanings. In this partnership, SongMeanings makes available community discussions around the meanings of various lyrics.\n\nSongMeanings for over a decade operated under songmeanings.net. During July 2013, SongMeanings began operating under songmeanings.com having acquired the domain a few months earlier.\n\nLyrics\nThe website has received significant coverage in mainstream news for its discussions on certain songs. In July 2005, users fiercely debated the meanings of the lyrics to Coldplay's song, \"Speed of Sound\". The News & Observer called SongMeaning's discussions on the meaning to the lyrics of 50 Cent's \"Wanksta\" particularly \"illuminating\". Attention was brought to SongMeanings in July 2007 when it was used to discuss what Tyondai Braxton meant in his underground song \"Atlas\". However, one of the most hotly debated songs is the Eagles' \"Hotel California\" with thousands of users weighing in on the true meaning of the song; leading theories include addiction and a secret message from a satanic cult. Writing for British newspaper The Guardian, Laura Barton discussed SongMeanings in an article focusing on the problem of mishearing lyrics in a song, the inability to determine what the lyrics are due to a lack of sleevenotes when downloading songs, and whether or not it is even essential to know the lyrics in order to understand a song. From the website, she chose the discussion on The Beatles's song, \"I Am the Walrus\", as an example, due to its cryptic lyrics. Barton quoted one of the comments from the website, which considered the song as a \"philosophy of life\", and that it was a song that was a prime example of one that \"threw into disarray the import placed upon lyrics\". She then rebutted this by choosing Elton John's \"Your Song\" as a better example of this.\n\nReception\nSongMeanings has been recommended by several publications. The Herald & Review asked its readers, \"Looking for an intense discussion on the meaning and influence of [50 Cent's] \"In Da Club\"? Maybe this site will help. It's also good if you're trying to figure out what exactly The Decemberists' \"Sixteen Military Wives\" means.\" The Jakarta Post also mentioned the site in an article on useful music- and lyrics-related websites. David Turim of the Chicago Tribune called it a \"pretty fascinating site for any contemporary music fan\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nOnline music and lyrics databases\nAmerican music websites"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career"
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team? | 1 | When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | true | [
"The 2011–12 Los Angeles Lakers season was the 64th season of the franchise, its 63rd season in the National Basketball Association (NBA), and its 52nd season in Los Angeles. For the first time since 2005, Phil Jackson did not return as the Lakers coach and replaced by former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown. Following the 2011 NBA lockout each team only played 66 games instead of the usual 82. At midseason they traded longtime point guard Derek Fisher to the Houston Rockets for Jordan Hill and longtime forward Luke Walton to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ramon Sessions.\n\nThe Lakers finished 41–25, roughly the equivalent of 51–31, winning the Pacific Division for the 33rd time. They finished the season as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. In the playoffs, they lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder 1–4 in the Western Conference semi-finals. This season marked the final career playoff appearances of Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum.\n\nDuring this season, the Lakers were supposed to acquire Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets in a three-team deal that would send Lamar Odom, Goran Dragic, Luis Scola, and Kevin Martin to the Hornets and Pau Gasol to the Houston Rockets, but then-NBA Commissioner David Stern had later vetoed the trade. Following the season, Andrew Bynum was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in a three-team deal.\n\nKey dates\n June 23: The 2011 NBA Draft took place at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.\n December 19: The Lakers play their first preseason season game against the Los Angeles Clippers.\n December 25: The Lakers play their first regular season game against the Chicago Bulls.\n April 13: The Lakers clinch a playoff berth.\n April 24: The Lakers win the Pacific Division.\n April 26: The Lakers play their final game of the season against the Sacramento Kings.\n\nDraft picks\n\nRoster\n\nPre-season\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 1\n| December 19\n| L. A. Clippers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (22)\n| Andrew Bynum (12)\n| Steve Blake (5)\n| Staples Center18,643\n| 0–1\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 2\n| December 21\n| @ L. A. Clippers\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (26)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Derek Fisher (8)\n| Staples Center19,060\n| 0–2\n\nRegular season\n\nEmergence of All Star Andrew Bynum\nAt the start of the season, Andrew Bynum did not play the first four games due to a suspension he earned in the final game of last year's playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks. In his first game back against the Denver Nuggets, he scored 29 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to help the Lakers to a 92-89 win. He had his first 20-20 game on January 3 against the Houston Rockets scoring 21 points and grabbing 22 rebounds. On April 11, 2012 Bynum further showed why he should be an all-star when against the San Antonio Spurs he recorded a career high 30 rebounds and helped the Lakers win the game 98-84. His domination on the glass was further shown when the Spurs only managed to grab 32 rebounds as a team. This was all done with Kobe Bryant, the Lakers best player sitting out. For the first time he was selected to play in the All Star game as the Western Conference's starting center. He was awarded Western Conference Player of the Week for the week of March 12 through 18. Bynum finish the season averaging a career high 18.7 points per game, 11.8 rebounds per game (NBA 3rd overall), and 35.2 minutes per game. His emergence as an all-star and career high numbers sparked a debate of whether Bynum was the best center in the league or Dwight Howard. Previously, Howard was seen widely as the undisputed best center in the league. Shaquille O'Neal was one of the main supporters of Bynum as the best center in the league.\n\nStandings\n\nRecord vs. opponents\n\nTrades\n\nGame log\n\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 1\n| December 25\n| Chicago\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Three Players (8)\n| Kobe Bryant (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 0–1\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 2\n| December 26\n| @ Sacramento\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Pau Gasol (9)\n| Kobe Bryant (6)\n| Power Balance Pavilion17,317\n| 0–2\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 3\n| December 27\n| Utah\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Troy Murphy (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 1–2\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 4\n| December 29\n| New York\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Pau Gasol (10)\n| Kobe Bryant (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 2–2\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 5\n| December 31\n| Denver\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (29)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (9)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 3–2\n\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 6\n| January 1\n| @ Denver\n| \n| Pau Gasol (20)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| Three Players(4)\n| Pepsi Center19,155\n| 3–3\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 7\n| January 3\n| Houston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (37)\n| Andrew Bynum (22)\n| Derek Fisher (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 4–3\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 8\n| January 5\n| @ Portland\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Andrew Bynum (12)\n| Derek Fisher (6)\n| Rose Garden20,444\n| 4–4\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 9\n| January 6\n| Golden State\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (39)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| Kobe BryantDerek Fisher (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 5–4\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 10\n| January 8\n| Memphis\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Andrew BynumPau Gasol (15)\n| Kobe Bryant (9)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 6–4\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 11\n| January 10\n| Phoenix\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (48)\n| Pau Gasol (12)\n| Steve Blake (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 7–4\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 12\n| January 11\n| @ Utah\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (40)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Derek Fisher (7)\n| EnergySolutions Arena 19,642\n| 8–4\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 13\n| January 13\n| Cleveland\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (42)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Derek Fisher (10)\n| Staples Center 18,997\n| 9–4\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 14\n| January 14\n| @ L. A. Clippers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (42)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Four Players (4)\n| Staples Center19,895\n| 9–5\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 15\n| January 16\n| Dallas\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (17)\n| Andrew Bynum (15)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 10–5\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 16\n| January 19\n| @ Miami\n| \n| Pau Gasol (26)\n| Andrew Bynum (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| American Airlines Arena20,004\n| 10–6\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 17\n| January 20\n| @ Orlando\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Andrew Bynum (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Amway Center18,846\n| 10–7\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 18\n| January 22\n| Indiana\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Pau Gasol (8)\n| Pau Gasol (10)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 10–8\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 19\n| January 25\n| L. A. Clippers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Pau Gasol (10)\n| Metta World Peace (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 11–8\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 20\n| January 28\n| @ Milwaukee\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (27)\n| Pau Gasol (15)\n| Kobe Bryant (9)\n| Bradley Center18,027\n| 11–9\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 21\n| January 29\n| @ Minnesota\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (35)\n| Kobe Bryant (14)\n| Derek Fisher (7)\n| Target Center17,551\n| 12–9\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 22\n| January 31\n| Charlotte\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Derek Fisher (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 13–9\n\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 23\n| February 3\n| @ Denver\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (22)\n| Pau Gasol (17)\n| Kobe Bryant (9)\n| Pepsi Center19,155\n| 14–9\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 24\n| February 4\n| @ Utah\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Pau Gasol (16)\n| Pau Gasol (4)\n| EnergySolutions Arena19,642\n| 14–10\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 25\n| February 6\n| @ Philadelphia\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Andrew Bynum (20)\n| Kobe Bryant (6)\n| Wells Fargo Center20,064\n| 14–11\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 26\n| February 9\n| @ Boston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (27)\n| Andrew Bynum (17)\n| Kobe Bryant (4)\n| TD Garden18,624\n| 15–11\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 27\n| February 10\n| @ New York\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (34)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Steve Blake (3)\n| Madison Square Garden19,763\n| 15–12\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 28\n| February 12\n| @ Toronto\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (27)\n| Pau Gasol (17)\n| Pau Gasol (6)\n| Air Canada Centre19,311\n| 16–12\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 29\n| February 14\n| Atlanta\n| \n| Pau Gasol (20)\n| Andrew Bynum (15)\n| Steve Blake (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 17–12\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 30\n| February 17\n| Phoenix\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (36)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Kobe Bryant (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 18–12\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 31\n| February 19\n| @ Phoenix\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (32)\n| Pau Gasol (12)\n| Pau Gasol (6)\n| US Airways Center18,023\n| 18–13\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 32\n| February 20\n| Portland\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Andrew Bynum (19)\n| Pau Gasol (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 19–13\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 33\n| February 22\n| @ Dallas\n| \n| Pau Gasol (24)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Steve Blake (5)\n| American Airlines Center20,577\n| 20–13\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 34\n| February 23\n| @ Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Serge Ibaka (13)\n| Metta World Peace (5)\n| Chesapeake Energy Arena18,203\n| 20–14\n|- align=\"center\"\n|colspan=\"9\" bgcolor=\"#bbcaff\"|All-Star Break\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 35\n| February 29\n| Minnesota\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (31)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Staples Center\n| 21–14\n\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 36\n| March 2\n| Sacramento\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (38)\n| Andrew Bynum (15)\n| Derek Fisher (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 22–14\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 37\n| March 4\n| Miami\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Steve Blake (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 23–14\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 38\n| March 6\n| @ Detroit\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (30)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| The Palace of Auburn Hills22,076\n| 23–15\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 39\n| March 7\n| @ Washington\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Pau Gasol (15)\n| Steve Blake (7)\n| Verizon Center20,282\n| 23–16\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 40\n| March 9\n| @ Minnesota\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (34)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Steve Blake (5)\n| Target Center20,164\n| 24–16\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 41\n| March 11\n| Boston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 25–16\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 42\n| March 13\n| @ Memphis\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (37)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| Pau Gasol (8)\n| FedExForum18,119\n| 26–16\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 43\n| March 14\n| @ New Orleans\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Andrew Bynum (18)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| New Orleans Arena17,272\n| 27–16\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 44\n| March 16\n| Minnesota\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Steve Blake (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 28–16\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 45\n| March 18\n| Utah\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (33)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Matt BarnesRamon Sessions (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 28–17\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 46\n| March 20\n| @ Houston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Andrew Bynum (7)\n| Three players (4)\n| Toyota Center18,391\n| 28–18\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 47\n| March 21\n| @ Dallas\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Matt BarnesPau Gasol (9)\n| Ramon Sessions (9)\n| American Airlines Center20,664\n| 29–18\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 48\n| March 23\n| Portland\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (28)\n| Pau Gasol (16)\n| Ramon Sessions (11)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 30–18\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 49\n| March 25\n| Memphis\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (30)\n| Pau Gasol (14)\n| Ramon Sessions (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 30–19\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 50\n| March 27\n| @ Golden State\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Pau Gasol (17)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| Oracle Arena19,596\n| 31–19\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 51\n| March 29\n| Oklahoma City\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (25)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Ramon Sessions (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 31–20\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 52\n| March 31\n| New Orleans\n| \n| Pau Gasol (21)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Ramon Sessions (10)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 32–20\n\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 53\n| April 1\n| Golden State\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (40)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Ramon Sessions (9)\n| Staples Center18,897\n| 33–20\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 54\n| April 3\n| New Jersey\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Pau Gasol (12)\n| Ramon Sessions (11)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 34–20\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 55\n| April 4\n| @ L. A. Clippers\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (36)\n| Andrew Bynum (8)\n| Ramon Sessions (8)\n| Staples Center19,819\n| 35–20\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 56\n| April 6\n| Houston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Matt Barnes (13)\n| Ramon Sessions (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 35–21\n|- bgcolor=#ffcccc\n| 57\n| April 7\n| @ Phoenix\n| \n| Pau Gasol (30)\n| Andrew Bynum (18)\n| Ramon Sessions (9)\n| US Airways Center18,237\n| 35–22\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 58\n| April 9\n| @ New Orleans\n| \n| Pau Gasol (25)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Ramon Sessions (6)\n| New Orleans Arena17,275\n| 36–22\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 59\n| April 11\n| @ San Antonio\n| \n| Metta World Peace (26)\n| Andrew Bynum (30)\n| Ramon Sessions (5)\n| AT&T Center18,581\n| 37–22\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 60\n| April 13\n| Denver\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (30)\n| Matt BarnesPau Gasol (10)\n| Ramon Sessions (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 38–22\n|- bgcolor=#ccffcc\n| 61\n| April 15\n| Dallas\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (23)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| Matt Barnes (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 39–22\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 62\n| April 17\n| San Antonio\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (21)\n| Pau Gasol (7)\n| Steve Blake (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 39–23\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 63\n| April 18\n| @ Golden State\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (31)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Oracle Arena\n| 40–23\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 64\n| April 20\n| @ San Antonio\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (18)\n| Pau Gasol (8)\n| Steve Blake (5)\n| AT&T Center18,547\n| 40–24\n|- bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 65\n| April 22\n| Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Jordan Hill (15)\n| Pau Gasol (9)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 41–24\n|- bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 66\n| April 26\n| @ Sacramento\n| \n| Josh McRoberts (16)\n| Josh McRoberts (9)\n| Steve Blake (6)\n| Power Balance Pavilion16281\n| 41–25\n\nPlayoffs\n\nDenver Nuggets\nThe Lakers were matched against the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the 2012 NBA Playoffs. They won the opening game 103–88 after Andrew Bynum had a triple-double with 10 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 blocked shots. The blocked shots broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's franchise record of nine, and tied the NBA playoff record set by Mark Eaton and Hakeem Olajuwon. Kobe Bryant scored 31 points and Pau Gasol added 13 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. After the Lakers led the series 3–1, Bynum before Game 5 said, \"Close-out games are actually kind of easy.\" The Lakers won the series 4–3, and avoided becoming the ninth team in NBA history to blow a 3-1 lead in a series. Gasol had 23 points, 17 rebounds and six assists, Bynum had 16 points and a career playoff-high 18 rebounds, and Steve Blake scored a playoff career-high 19 points in a 96–87 win in Game 7. The Lakers blew 16-point lead in the second half before Gasol put the Lakers ahead for good with a tip-in basket with 6:30 to play. Denver had 19 turnovers in the game and shot just 7-of-27 shooting in the fourth quarter. Returning from his seven-game suspension, Metta World Peace scored 15 points, while Bryant had 17 points added eight assists.\n\nOklahoma City Thunder\nThe Lakers were then matched up against the second seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the 2012 NBA Playoffs. During this series the Lakers did not have home court advantage as they did against Denver. In the first game of the series the Thunder blew the Lakers out 90-119. In the second game, the Lakers led 75-68 with 2:08 to play but were unable to hold on. Kevin Durant hit the go ahead bucket with 18.6 seconds to go and Steve Blake missed a three-pointer in the corner resulting in a 75-76 Laker loss. The Lakers won game 3 at home 99-96. Kobe Bryant scored 36 points going 18-18 from the free throw line including the last 2 free throws that put the Lakers up by 3. Game 4 ended with a 100-103 Thunder win. The Lakers held a 9-point lead with 6:01 to play in the 4th quarter but were unable to sustain. This time it was Kevin Durant with the go-ahead three-pointer over Metta World Peace. Kobe Bryant had 38 points to lead the Lakers but Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant were able to both match him combining for 68 points. Ultimately, the eventual Western Conference Champions Thunder proved too much for the Lakers, winning the next game at Chesapeake Energy Arena 90-106, wrapping up the series 1-4. Kobe Bryant averaged 31.2 points per game in the series. Andrew Bynum, the Lakers other All-Star did not perform up to his usual standards and only averaged 16.6 points per game and 9.4 rebounds per game. This was low considering during the regular season he averaged 18.7 points and 11.8 rebounds per game, both career highs. This marked the second year in a row the Lakers were defeated in the second round of the playoffs. The previous year they were swept 4-0 by the Dallas Mavericks.\n\n|- bgcolor=ccffcc\n| 1\n| April 29\n| Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (31)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Pau Gasol (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 1–0\n|- bgcolor=ccffcc\n| 2\n| May 1\n| Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (38)\n| 2 Players Tied (10)\n| Pau Gasol (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 2–0\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 3\n| May 4\n| @ Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (22)\n| Andrew Bynum (12)\n| 2 Players Tied (6)\n| Pepsi Center19,155\n| 2–1\n|- bgcolor=ccffcc\n| 4\n| May 6\n| @ Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (22)\n| Jordan Hill (11)\n| 2 Players Tied (6)\n| Pepsi Center19,155\n| 3–1\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 5\n| May 8\n| Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (43)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Ramon Sessions (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 3–2\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 6\n| May 10\n| @ Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (31)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| 2 Players Tied (4)\n| Pepsi Center19,770\n| 3–3\n|- bgcolor=ccffcc\n| 7\n| May 12\n| Denver\n| \n| Pau Gasol (23)\n| Andrew Bynum (18)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 4–3\n\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 1\n| May 14\n| @ Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum (20)\n| Andrew Bynum (14)\n| Steve Blake (4)\n| Chesapeake Energy Arena18,203\n| 0–1\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 2\n| May 16\n| @ Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum (20)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (4)\n| Chesapeake Energy Arena18,203\n| 0–2\n|- bgcolor=ccffcc\n| 3\n| May 18\n| Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (36)\n| Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 1–2\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 4\n| May 19\n| Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (38)\n| Andrew Bynum (9)\n| Kobe Bryant, Ramon Sessions (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 1–3\n|- bgcolor=ffcccc\n| 5\n| May 21\n| @ Oklahoma City\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (42)\n| Pau Gasol (16)\n| Meta World Peace (5)\n| Chesapeake Energy Arena18,203\n| 1–4\n\nPlayer statistics\n\nRegular season\n\nPlayoffs\n\nAwards, records and milestones\n\nAwards\n Pau Gasol won the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award.\n\nWeek/month\nThe following players were named the Western Conference Players of the Week.\n\nThe following players were named Western Conference Players of the Month.\n\nAll-Star\n Kobe Bryant was voted as an All-Star starter for the 14th consecutive time.\n Andrew Bynum was voted as an All-Star starter for the 1st time.\n\nRecords\n January 1: Kobe Bryant became the youngest player to score 28,000 career points at 33 years and 131 days old.\n March 27: Kobe Bryant passed Michael Jordan for second most points scored by a player for a single franchise after scoring 30 points against the Golden State Warriors.\n Andrew Bynum recorded 10 blocks against the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of the NBA Division playoffs tying an NBA playoff record set by Mark Eaton and Hakeem Olajuwon.\n\nTeam records\n January 28: Kobe Bryant made his 7,161st free throw against the Milwaukee Bucks, breaking the Lakers all-time free throw record set by Jerry West.\n January 29: Kobe Bryant made his 9,936th field goal against the Minnesota Timberwolves breaking the Lakers all-time record set by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.\n February 6: Kobe Bryant passed Shaquille O'Neal into 5th place on the all-time scoring list against the Philadelphia 76ers.\n February 10: Kobe Bryant made his 10,000th career field goal in a game against the New York Knicks.\n March 9: Kobe Bryant, at 33 years and 200 days old, became the youngest player to score 29,000 points in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.\n\nMilestones\n January 20: Los Angeles Lakers power forward Pau Gasol scored his 14,000th career point in a game against the Orlando Magic.\n\nTeam milestones\n\nTransactions\n\nFree agents\n\nAdditions\nPower Forwards Troy Murphy, Josh McRoberts, and Guard/Forward Jason Kapono, who was later traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers.\n\nSubtractions\nDerrick Caracter\n\nPre-season trades\nIn December 2011, NBA commissioner David Stern vetoed a proposed three-team trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers, Lamar Odom to the New Orleans Hornets, and Pau Gasol to the Houston Rockets. Stern said the Hornets were better off keeping Paul than accepting the terms of the deal. The league had acquired the Hornets from former owner George Shinn, and the commissioner's office had final authority over all management decisions. Odom felt \"disrespected\" after he learned of the Hornets trade publicly, and he requested a trade from the Lakers to another contending team. The Lakers were also concerned that Odom's contract was pricey since he was not needed to initiate the triangle offense with Mike Brown replacing Phil Jackson as Lakers coach. Odom was traded to the Dallas Mavericks for a first-round draft pick and an $8.9 million trade exception on December 11.\n\nMid-season trades\nOn March 15, 2012, the Lakers traded Luke Walton, Jason Kapono, and a 2012 first-round draft pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ramon Sessions, Christian Eyenga, and the right to swap a 2013 first-round pick for Miami's, currently owned by Cleveland. They also traded longtime Laker and co-captain Derrick Fisher and a 2012 first-round draft pick to the Houston Rockets for Jordan Hill. These trades gave them the younger, quicker starting point guard they had been looking for to compete in a league that featured quick, explosive point guards on almost every team. Hill bolstered the Laker frontline which featured oft-injured Andrew Bynum. Both Sessions and Hill added youth to a Laker team filled with old veterans. Although Hill did not play immediately, he later planted himself as a key bench player after his breakout game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. After Metta World Peace was ejected for elbowing James Harden, the shorthanded Lakers called upon Hill. In his first game with significant minutes for the Lakers, he scored 14 points, grabbed 15 rebounds, and blocked 3 shots. Not only did he play an important role in both overtime periods, he was so productive that Coach Mike Brown played Hill instead of Bynum, the Lakers' all star center. Hill helped the Lakers defeat the Thunder, 114–106.\n\nReferences\n\nLos Angeles Lakers seasons\nLos Angeles Lakers\nLos Angle\nLos Angle",
"The 2007–08 Los Angeles Lakers season was the 60th season of the franchise, 59th in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and 48th in Los Angeles. During the offseason, the Lakers re-signed point guard Derek Fisher. The Lakers celebrated their 60th anniversary, thus the Laker jerseys wore the 60th anniversary patches on the leftmost part. They finished the regular season with 57 wins, finishing with the most wins in the tightest conference race in NBA history. The Lakers clinched the top seed in the playoffs for the 29th time in franchise history. This 15-game turnaround from the prior season has been attributed to the progress of the team's bench players and the mid-season trade for Pau Gasol. The Lakers sold out all 41 home games for the season. After 12 seasons in the NBA, Kobe Bryant was named the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player for the first and only time in his career. The Lakers had the third best team offensive rating and the fifth best team defensive rating in the NBA.\n\nIn the playoffs, the Lakers swept the Denver Nuggets in four games in the First Round, defeated the Utah Jazz in six games in the Semifinals, and defeated the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs in five games in the Conference Finals to advance to the NBA Finals since 2004. In the NBA Finals, the Lakers faced off against their rivals, the Boston Celtics, renewing their storied rivalry, and marking the first time the two teams faced off against each other in the NBA Finals since 1987. However, the Lakers would lose against the Celtics in the NBA Finals in six games, ending with a blowout defeat to the Celtics in Game 6 by 39 points, losing 92–131, and marking the Lakers' ninth defeat to the Celtics in the NBA Finals.\n\nKey dates\n June 28: The 2007 NBA draft took place in New York City.\n July 1: The free agency period started.\n October 7: The preseason started with a home game versus the Utah Jazz.\n October 28: The regular season started with a home game versus the Houston Rockets.\n February 16–17: The 2008 NBA All-Star Weekend took place.\n March 2: The Lakers matched their previous season win total (42) with an overtime win against the Dallas Mavericks.\n April 11: The Lakers clinched the Pacific Division title with a win over the New Orleans Hornets.\n April 15: The Lakers clinched the Western Conference title and concluded the regular season with a game against the Sacramento Kings.\n April 20: The Lakers played their first playoff game of the season.\n June 17: The Lakers played their final game of the playoffs against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals, losing 92–131.\n\nRoster changes\n\nInjuries and surgeries\nFollowing the 2006–07 NBA season, their offseason was marred with surgeries to their two key players. The first of which was Lamar Odom having shoulder surgery which made him miss the first five games of the 2007–08 NBA season. The other was Kwame Brown having shoulder surgery also.\n\nSignings\nThe Lakers' first signing was their first-round draft pick Javaris Crittenton. Then the Lakers re-signed Luke Walton to a six-year contract extension worth $30 million. Chris Mihm also signed a new contract for two years despite missing the entire previous season after having surgery on his right ankle. Walton was a key player last season while Mihm was sidelined for the whole season.\n\nThe most notable signing of the Lakers off-season was past hero Derek Fisher, signed to a three-year deal worth approximately $14 million. Fisher was released from the Utah Jazz at his request during the offseason so his family could move to a city that has better treatment for his daughter, who was diagnosed with retinoblastoma. The Lakers signed him in order to add stability at the point and they needed a player who was well versed in the triangle offense. The Lakers were also hoping that signing a former veteran of the Lakers would ease Bryant's demand to be traded.\n\nAndrew Bynum and Jordan Farmar had their 4th-year and 3rd-year contracts extended respectively. This kept each player with the team for at least one more year.\n\nD. J. Mbenga and rookie Coby Karl were also signed with the team to fill roster spots. Coby Karl, the son of Nuggets coach George Karl, switched between the NBDL and Lakers roster throughout the season. During midseason, injuries plagued the team and Ira Newble was signed to a ten-day contract. After this he signed a contract for the rest of the season.\n\nDepartures\nThe most notable departure was last year's starting point guard Smush Parker to the Miami Heat. Aaron McKie left the Lakers and became a voluntary coach for the 76ers. After spending one year with the Lakers, Shammond Williams left via free agency to play for Pamesa Valencia of the ACB.\n\nTrades\nEarly in the season the Lakers traded Maurice Evans and under-achieving power forward Brian Cook for forward Trevor Ariza. Ariza would average 6.5 points per game, averaging only 18 minutes per game. Ariza broke his foot in practice on January 20 and missed the rest of the regular season. He returned to the Lakers on May 23.\n\nAfter Andrew Bynum was injured for the rest of the season, the Lakers needed help in the front court before they risked falling out of contention in the playoff race. In February, the Lakers traded Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie (who was re-signed specifically for the trade), the draft rights to Marc Gasol, two first-round draft picks (2008 and 2010) and cash for Pau Gasol and a second-round draft pick in 2010. Many consider the Lakers the major benefactor of the trade. As a result, some criticized the trade as being unbalanced in excessively benefiting the Lakers. Gregg Popovich called Memphis' agreement to the terms of the trade \"beyond comprehension\" and suggested that the league should form a committee to \"scratch all trades that make no sense\". The trade became an immediate success for the Lakers, who went 22–5 with Gasol in the lineup and went on to reach the NBA Finals.\n\nDraft picks\n\nLos Angeles had three selections for the 2007 NBA draft. With their first-round pick, the Lakers selected Georgia Tech freshman point guard Javaris Crittenton. With their second pick coming from the Bobcats, the Lakers selected the Chinese player Sun Yue. And with their final pick the Lakers selected Pau Gasol's younger brother, Marc. Marc Gasol and Crittenton were both traded midseason for Pau Gasol. Sun Yue spent the entire 2007–08 season playing in the ABA and China national basketball team and didn't play a game in the NBA.\n\nRoster\n\nRoster notes\n Center Andrew Bynum played 35 games (his last game being on January 13, 2008) but missed the rest of the season and the playoffs due to a left knee injury.\n\nSeason summary\n\nFollowing the 2006–07 NBA season the future of Kobe Bryant's career as a Laker fell into doubt, when he demanded to be traded. For a week he tiraded and the situation escalated when a videotape about him was released. The video recorded him saying that the Lakers should have traded Andrew Bynum for Jason Kidd. Bryant insulted Bynum and was critical of General Manager Mitch Kupchak. Management decided to re-sign Derek Fisher, a past hero, but the Lakers would enter the season frustrated and with question marks. \n\nThe Lakers started the 2007–08 NBA season surprisingly well. Fueled by the emergence of Andrew Bynum as a main option at center and the return of Derek Fisher, the Lakers would even enjoy being the number one team in the Western Conference for three days. Capped by an early-season trade for Trevor Ariza, rumors of Bryant wanting to leave Los Angeles were finally beginning to die. However, before the Lakers could savor their new success, Bynum would go down with a knee injury that would take him out for the remainder of the season. Suddenly, the contending Lakers lost three straight games. The remainder of the season looked bleak for the Lakers, who were struggling to win games. It seemed that injuries, once again, would cripple another Laker season.\n\nOn February 1, the Lakers dealt the unpopular Kwame Brown (who was booed viciously by the fans for his many turnovers in recent games ), rookie Javaris Crittenton, veteran Aaron McKie, the draft rights to his brother Marc Gasol, and first-round picks in 2008 and 2010 for Spaniard all-star forward Pau Gasol and a second-round draft choice in 2010. With the Lakers now having a center and power forward who are both tall, analysts have referred to Gasol and Bynum as \"the twin towers\", similar to the duo of Tim Duncan and David Robinson in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Even while waiting for Bynum's return, the Lakers were playing very well and got a second taste of being best in the Western Conference.\n\nWith Kobe Bryant leading the charge with his MVP-caliber season, the month of April was successful for the Lakers, who quickly surged to the top of Western Conference. Aided by Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom's play as second and third options respectively, the Lakers clinched their playoff berth for the 55th time in their 60 years with the league, won the Pacific Division from the Phoenix Suns (their first since Shaq left in 2004), and clinched the number one seed in the Western Conference for the first time since the 1999–2000 NBA season. Kobe Bryant publicly announced his desire to remain as a Laker. During the second round against the Utah Jazz, Byrant was officially named the 2007–2008 NBA Most Valuable Player award, to which he promised the fans that the team would \"play until June\", that he was \"very proud to represent [the] organization, to represent [the] city\" and thanked his teammates for helping him win the MVP award for the first time in his 12-season career. He said, \"the special thing about this award is that we have done it together. I can't stress it enough. This is not an individual award.\"\n\nFurthermore, the team had bonded during training camp last October in Honolulu when Lamar Odom hired a chef to cook for the team. \"I won't take the credit\", Odom said, \"but in training camp we became tighter. I made sure we had a chef. We ate dinner, lunch and breakfast together every day at training camp. I think that was special. I think that's when the bond started.\" Additionally, Byrant's behavior towards his teammates changed as well. \"It's the little things, taking guys out to dinner, talking to guys more about things\", Luke Walton said. \"He's such a great player, I think sometimes it gets frustrating if we don't understand something. But he's taking the time to explain what guys are doing out there a little more. I think before he used to be a little more negative towards his teammates, as opposed to now, when he's pulling people to the side, talking to them, finding out ways to figure it out together instead of just coming down hard on them. He's definitely more patient. He's having more fun. I think he's enjoying it more, especially with the team going like this.\"\n\nPlayoffs summary\n\nDenver Nuggets\nIn Pau Gasol's playoff debut with the Lakers, he scored 36 points, with 16 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 blocked shots, as the Lakers beat the Nuggets in Game 1. After Game 1, Kobe Bryant publicly announced his desire to remain as a Laker. Kobe Bryant gave the fans a vintage performance in Game 2 by scoring 49 points and adding 10 assists in a blowout at Staples Center. Game 2 against the Nuggets would mark a playoff first in which Lakers rookie guard Coby Karl became the first player to go against his coaching father, George Karl, in an NBA playoff game. The Nuggets were routed at home in Game 3, with Carmelo Anthony stating the team quit in the second half. Game 4 was closer, but Bryant led the Lakers with 14 points in the last five and a half minutes to close out the Nuggets at the Pepsi Center. The Lakers were the only team in 2008 to sweep an opponent in the playoffs.\n\nUtah Jazz\nThe Lakers faced the Utah Jazz in the second round of the playoffs which began on May 4 at Staples Center. It was the first time the two franchises had competed in a post-season series since the 1998 Western Conference Finals. Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, and Utah Head Coach Jerry Sloan and Assistant Coach Phil Johnson, were the only individuals present from the 1998 series that were in this series. Conversely, it was also the first play-off series meeting between Coach Sloan and Lakers' Head Coach Phil Jackson since the Chicago Bulls defeated the Jazz in the NBA Finals that same year. The Lakers took game 1 at Staples Center, winning by 11 against the Jazz. During Game 2 against the Utah Jazz, Bryant was officially named the 2007–2008 NBA Most Valuable Player award, to which he promised the fans that the team would \"play until June\", that he was \"very proud to represent [the] organization, to represent [the] city\" and thanked his teammates for helping him win the MVP award for the first time in his 12-season career. He said, \"the special thing about this award is that we have done it together. I can't stress it enough. This is not an individual award.\" After being presented the trophy Bryant led his team to their second victory with 34 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists. Having a 6–0 record in the playoffs, the Lakers traveled to Utah to play the third and fourth games of the series. However their streak would come to a sudden halt. The Jazz won both Games 3 and 4 to even up the series with Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, who bounced back after having two terrible games at L.A., leading the team. Game 4 went to overtime which the Lakers lost for the first time this season. The series would head back to Los Angeles tied 2–2. The Lakers came back with authority as they took Game 5 with Bryant, Gasol, and Odom scoring 20-plus points each. The Jazz looked to force a Game 7 but the Lakers closed out the series in Game 6 in Utah to end the series 4–2. Their victory on the road against the Jazz marked not only an impressive road win against a team with the best home record in the league, but also the second victory a road team had notched against a home team in the entire 2007–2008 playoff Conference Semifinals, as home teams had won at a 22–2 pace.\n\nSan Antonio Spurs\nThe Lakers went on to face the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals. The two teams combined to win seven of the last nine NBA Championships. The Lakers were able to overcome a 20-point deficit in game 1 and win behind Kobe Bryant's 27 points, with 25 being scored in the second half. Game 2 was a cruise for the Lakers as they made a 9–0 run before halftime and built the lead to 30. For the third straight series the Lakers started off 2–0. This also marked Ariza playing for the first time since breaking a bone in his right foot in January. The Spurs easily took game 3 in San Antonio with Manu Ginóbili carrying the Spurs after two terrible games in L.A. The Lakers barely escaped Game 4 with a narrow win after Brent Barry missed a last second three-pointer due to a \"missed foul call\" on Derek Fisher, even though Bryant, Gregg Popovich, and Phil Jackson all agreed that it was not a foul. The NBA head office, however, admitted the next day that a foul should have been called, which would have given one of the league's top free throw shooters a chance to tie the game. Heading home up 3–1 in the series, the Lakers trailed in the first quarter by 17 but were able to cut the lead to six by halftime. Again, Bryant stepped up by scoring 17 of his 39 points in the fourth quarter and the Lakers surged ahead to take a 100–92 victory behind their home crowd for a chance to win championship no. 15. They also improved to 4–0 against San Antonio in the Western Conference Finals.\n\nBoston Celtics\n\nThe Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals again as the no. 1 seed. The last time this happened to the team was during 2000, where they beat the Indiana Pacers 4–2. The Lakers looked to renew their rivalry with the Boston Celtics as the two matched up for the 11th time in the NBA Finals. The Celtics own an 8–2 record all-time against the Lakers in the NBA Finals, but were defeated by Los Angeles the last two times they met in 1985 and 1987. Entering the finals, the Celtics and the Lakers held the record for most Finals appearances (Celtics 19, Lakers 28) including the 2008 Finals, and most championships (Celtics 16, Lakers 14). The Celtics went on to win the Finals 4–2 for their 17th NBA championship.\n\nStandings\n\nRecord vs. opponents\n\nGame log\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 1\n| October 30\n| Houston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (45)\n| Kwame Brown, Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Luke Walton, Kobe Bryant (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 0–1\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 2\n| November 2\n| @ Phoenix\n| \n| Vladimir Radmanović (19)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (4)\n| US Airways Center18,422\n| 1-1\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 3\n| November 4\n| Utah\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Andrew Bynum (9)\n| Luke Walton (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 2-1\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 4\n| November 6\n| New Orleans\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 2-2\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 5\n| November 9\n| Minnesota\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Andrew Bynum, Chris Mihm, Lamar Odom (10)\n| Derek Fisher (9)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 3-2\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 6\n| November 13\n| @ San Antonio\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (18)\n| Andrew Bynum (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| AT&T Center18,797\n| 3-3\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 7\n| November 14\n| @ Houston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Andrew Bynum, Jordan Farmar (9)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| Toyota Center18,178\n| 4-3\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 8\n| November 16\n| Detroit\n| \n| Lamar Odom (25)\n| Lamar Odom (15)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 5-3\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 9\n| November 18\n| Chicago\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (18)\n| Andrew Bynum (10)\n| Jordan Farmar (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 6-3\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 10\n| November 20\n| @ Indiana\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (32)\n| Andrew Bynum (10)\n| Ronny Turiaf (5)\n| Conseco Fieldhouse11,577\n| 7-3\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 11\n| November 21\n| @ Milwaukee\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (27)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar, Lamar Odom (4)\n| BMO Harris Bradley Center17,526\n| 7-4\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 12\n| November 23\n| @ Boston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Andrew Bynum (9)\n| Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar, Ronny Turiaf, Luke Walton (3)\n| TD Banknorth Garden18,624\n| 7-5\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 13\n| November 25\n| New Jersey\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (31)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 7-6\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 14\n| November 27\n| Seattle\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (35)\n| Andrew Bynum (10)\n| Derek Fisher (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 8-6\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 15\n| November 29\n| Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Andrew Bynum (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 9-6\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 16\n| November 30\n| @ Utah\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Andrew Bynum (10)\n| Luke Walton (6)\n| EnergySolutions Arena19,911\n| 9-7\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 17\n| December 2\n| Orlando\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Lamar Odom (17)\n| Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 9-8\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 18\n| December 4\n| @ Minnesota\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (20)\n| Lamar Odom (9)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| Target Center17,513\n| 10-8\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 19\n| December 5\n| @ Denver\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (25)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher (5)\n| Pepsi Center19,155\n| 11-8\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 20\n| December 9\n| Golden State\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (28)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 12-8\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 21\n| December 13\n| San Antonio\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Andrew Bynum (11)\n| Luke Walton (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 13-8\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 22\n| December 14\n| @ Golden State\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (21)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom (5)\n| Oracle Arena20,705\n| 13-9\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 23\n| December 16\n| LA Clippers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (32)\n| Andrew Bynum (9)\n| Vladimir Radmanovic (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 14-9\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 24\n| December 18\n| @ Chicago\n| \n| Sasha Vujačić (19)\n| Lamar Odom (16)\n| Jordan Farmar (6)\n| United Center22,310\n| 15-9\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 25\n| December 20\n| @ Cleveland\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (21)\n| Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom (11)\n| Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher (5)\n| Quicken Loans Arena20,562\n| 15-10\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 26\n| December 21\n| @ Philadelphia\n| \n| Andrew Bynum (24)\n| Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom (11)\n| Derek Fisher (7)\n| Wachovia Center17,903\n| 16-10\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 27\n| December 23\n| @ New York\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (39)\n| Kobe Bryant (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Madison Square Garden19,763\n| 17-10\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 28\n| December 25\n| Phoenix\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (38)\n| Lamar Odom (14)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 18-10\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 29\n| December 28\n| Utah\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (31)\n| Andrew Bynum (9)\n| Derek Fisher (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 19-10\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 30\n| December 30\n| Boston\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (22)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Trevor Ariza, Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher (3)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 19-11\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 31\n| January 4\n| Philadelphia\n| \n| Javaris Crittenton (19)\n| Andrew Bynum (16)\n| Andrew Bynum, Kwame Brown, Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 20-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 32\n| January 6\n| Indiana\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom (13)\n| Luke Walton (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 21-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 33\n| January 8\n| @ Memphis\n| \n| Derek Fisher (26)\n| Lamar Odom (15)\n| Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom (6)\n| FedEx Forum14,981\n| 22-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 34\n| January 9\n| @ New Orleans\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (19)\n| Andrew Bynum (9)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| New Orleans Arena15,605\n| 23-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 35\n| January 11\n| Milwaukee\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (37)\n| Andrew Bynum (17)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 24-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 36\n| January 13\n| Memphis\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (37)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Kobe Bryant (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 25-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 37\n| January 14\n| @ Seattle\n| (OT)\n| Kobe Bryant (48)\n| Lamar Odom (14)\n| Lamar Odom, Luke Walton (7)\n| KeyArena13,452\n| 26-11\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 38\n| January 17\n| Phoenix\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Lamar Odom (19)\n| Lamar Odom (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 26-12\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 39\n| January 21\n| Denver\n| \n| Derek Fisher (28)\n| Kwame Brown, Lamar Odom (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (11)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 27-12\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 40\n| January 23\n| @ San Antonio\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| AT&T Center18,797\n| 27-13\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 41\n| January 25\n| @ Dallas\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (40)\n| Kobe Bryant (10)\n| Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar (5)\n| American Airlines Center20,438\n| 27-14\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 42\n| January 27\n| Cleveland\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Kobe Bryant (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 27-15\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 43\n| January 29\n| New York\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Lamar Odom (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (11)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 28-15\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 44\n| January 31\n| @ Detroit\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (39)\n| Kobe Bryant (10)\n| Lamar Odom (6)\n| The Palace of Auburn Hills22,076\n| 28-16\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 45\n| February 1\n| @ Raptors\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (46)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Lamar Odom (8)\n| Air Canada Centre19,800\n| 29-16\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 46\n| February 3\n| @ Wizards\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Lamar Odom, Vladimir Radmanovic (7)\n| Lamar Odom, Ronny Turiaf (5)\n| Verizon Center20,173\n| 30-16\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 47\n| February 5\n| @ Nets\n| \n| Derek Fisher (28)\n| Lamar Odom (15)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Izod Center19,990\n| 31-16\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 48\n| February 6\n| @ Hawks\n| \n| Lamar Odom (19)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (10)\n| Philips Arena19,701\n| 31-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 49\n| February 8\n| @ Magic\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (36)\n| Kobe Bryant (10)\n| Derek Fisher (7)\n| Amway Arena17,519\n| 32-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 50\n| February 10\n| @ Heat\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Lamar Odom (18)\n| Lamar Odom (6)\n| AmericanAirlines Arena19,600\n| 33-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 51\n| February 11\n| @ Bobcats\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (31)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom (6)\n| Charlotte Bobcats Arena19,270\n| 34-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 52\n| February 13\n| @ Timberwolves\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Lamar Odom (16)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Target Center13,874\n| 35-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 53\n| February 19\n| Hawks\n| \n| Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol (23)\n| Lamar Odom (15)\n| Luke Walton (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 36-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 54\n| February 20\n| @ Suns\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (41)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher, Vladimir Radmanovic (3)\n| US Airways Center18,422\n| 37-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 55\n| February 23\n| @ Clippers\n| \n| Pau Gasol (23)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center20,236\n| 38-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 56\n| February 24\n| @ SuperSonics\n| \n| Pau Gasol (22)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (10)\n| KeyArena at Seattle Center17,072\n| 39-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 57\n| February 26\n| Trail Blazers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 40-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 58\n| February 28\n| Heat\n| \n| Jordan Farmar (24)\n| Ronny Turiaf (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 41-17\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 59\n| February 29\n| @ Trail Blazers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (33)\n| Lamar Odom (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| Rose Garden Arena20,651\n| 41-18\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 60\n| March 2\n| Mavericks\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (52)\n| Pau Gasol (14)\n| Pau Gasol (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 42-18\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 61\n| March 4\n| @ Kings\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (34)\n| Lamar Odom (12)\n| Derek Fisher (6)\n| ARCO Center17,317\n| 43-18\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 62\n| March 7\n| Clippers\n| \n| Derek Fisher (17)\n| Pau Gasol (11)\n| Pau Gasol. Ronny Turiaf (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 44-18\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 63\n| March 9\n| Kings\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Lamar Odom (10)\n| Pau Gasol (9)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 44-19\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 64\n| March 11\n| Raptors\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (34)\n| Lamar Odom (9)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 45-19\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 65\n| March 14\n| @ Hornets\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (36)\n| Lamar Odom (13)\n| Luke Walton (7)\n| New Orleans Arena18,199\n| 45-20\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 66\n| March 16\n| @ Rockets\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (24)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Jordan Farmar, Derek Fisher (3)\n| Toyota Center18,409\n| 45-21\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 67\n| March 18\n| @ Mavericks\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Lamar Odom (17)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| American Airlines Center20,534\n| 46-21\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 68\n| March 20\n| @ Jazz\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (27)\n| Lamar Odom (12)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| EnergySolutions Arena19,911\n| 47-21\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 69\n| March 21\n| SuperSonics\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (23)\n| Lamar Odom (12)\n| Ronny Turiaf (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 48-21\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 70\n| March 23\n| Warriors\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (36)\n| Lamar Odom (22)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 48-22\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 71\n| March 24\n| @ Warriors\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (30)\n| Lamar Odom (21)\n| Kobe Bryant (7)\n| Oracle Arena20,713\n| 49-22\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 72\n| March 26\n| Bobcats\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (27)\n| Lamar Odom (9)\n| Vladimir Radmanovic (4)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 49-23\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 73\n| March 28\n| Grizzlies\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (53)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Lamar Odom (11)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 49-24\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 74\n| March 30\n| Wizards\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (26)\n| Lamar Odom (13)\n| Kobe Bryant (13)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 50-24\n\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 75\n| April 2\n| Trail Blazers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (36)\n| Kobe Bryant (13)\n| Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 51-24\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 76\n| April 4\n| Mavericks\n| \n| Lamar Odom (31)\n| Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom (10)\n| Pau Gasol (7)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 52-24\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 77\n| April 6\n| Kings\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Vladimir Radmanovic (14)\n| Lamar Odom (7)\n| Staples Center17,317\n| 53-24\n|- bgcolor=\"ffcccc\"\n| 78\n| April 8\n| @ Trail Blazers\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (34)\n| Pau Gasol (13)\n| Jordan Farmar (6)\n| Rose Garden Arena20,435\n| 53-25\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 79\n| April 10\n| @ Clippers\n| \n| Luke Walton (18)\n| Lamar Odom (13)\n| Jordan Farmar, Derek Fisher, Luke Walton (4)\n| Staples Center20,084\n| 54-25\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 80\n| April 11\n| Hornets\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (29)\n| Lamar Odom (16)\n| Kobe Bryant (8)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 55-25\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 81\n| April 13\n| Spurs\n| \n| Kobe Bryant (20)\n| Lamar Odom (14)\n| Kobe Bryant (5)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 56-25\n|- bgcolor=\"ccffcc\"\n| 82\n| April 15\n| Kings\n| \n| Pau Gasol (22)\n| Lamar Odom (12)\n| Ronny Turiaf (6)\n| Staples Center18,997\n| 57-25\n\nPlayoffs\n\n|- bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 1 || April 20 || Denver ||128–114||Gasol (36)||Gasol (16)||Gasol (8)||Staples Center 18,997|| 1–0\n|- bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 2 || April 23 || Denver ||122–107||Bryant (49)||Gasol (10)||Bryant (10)||Staples Center18,997|| 2–0\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 3 || April 26 || @ Denver ||102–84||Bryant (22)||Bryant, Odom, Radmanović (7)||Bryant (8)||Pepsi Center19,602|| 3–0\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 4 || April 28 || @ Denver ||107–101||Bryant (31)||Odom (12)||Bryant (6)||Pepsi Center19,264|| 4–0\n|-\n\n|- bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 1 || May 4 || Utah ||109–98 || Bryant (38)|| Gasol (10) || Bryant (7) || Staples Center18,997 || 1–0\n|- bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 2 || May 7 || Utah ||120–110 || Bryant (34) || Odom (16)|| Bryant (6) || Staples Center18,997 || 2–0\n|- bgcolor=\"edbebf\"\n| 3 || May 9 || @ Utah || 99–104 || Bryant (34) || Odom (12) || Bryant (7) ||EnergySolutions Arena19,911 || 2–1\n|- bgcolor=\"edbebf\"\n| 4 || May 11 || @ Utah || 115–123 || Bryant (33) || Odom (13) || Bryant (10) ||EnergySolutions Arena19,911 || 2–2\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 5 || May 14 || Utah || 111–104 || Bryant (26) || Odom (11) || Gasol (8) || Staples Center18,997 || 3–2\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 6 || May 16 || @ Utah ||108–105|| Bryant (34) || Gasol (13) || Bryant (6) ||EnergySolutions Arena19,911 || 4–2\n|-\n\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 1 || May 21 || San Antonio || 89–85 || Bryant (27) || Odom (8) || Bryant (9) || Staples Center18,997|| 1–0\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 2 || May 23 || San Antonio || 101–71 || Bryant (22) || Odom (12) || Bryant (5) || Staples Center18,997 || 2–0\n|-bgcolor=\"#edbebf\"\n| 3 || May 25 || @ San Antonio || 84–103 || Bryant (30) || Odom (11) || Odom (6) || AT&T Center18,797 || 2–1\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 4 || May 27 || @ San Antonio || 93–91 || Bryant (28) || Bryant, Gasol (10) || Gasol (6) || AT&T Center18,797|| 3–1\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 5 || May 29 || San Antonio || 100–92 || Bryant (39) || Gasol (19) || Gasol (5) || Staples Center18,997 || 4–1\n|-\n|-\n\n|-bgcolor=\"#edbebf\"\n| 1 || June 5 || @ Boston || 88–98 || Bryant (24) || Gasol (8) || Bryant, Fisher (6) || TD Banknorth Garden18,624 || 0–1\n|-bgcolor=\"#edbebf\"\n| 2 || June 8 || @ Boston || 102–108 || Bryant (30) || Gasol, Radmanović (10) || Bryant (8) || TD Banknorth Garden18,624 || 0–2\n|-bgcolor=\"#bbffbb\"\n| 3 || June 10 || Boston || 87–81 || Bryant (36) || Gasol (12) || Farmar (5) || Staples Center18,997 || 1–2\n|-bgcolor=\"#edbebf\"\n| 4 || June 12 || Boston || 91–97 || Odom (19) || Gasol, Odom (10) || Bryant (10) || Staples Center18,997 || 1–3\n|- bgcolor=\"bbffbb\"\n| 5 || June 15 || Boston || 103–98 || Bryant (25) || Gasol (13) || Gasol (6) || Staples Center18,997 || 2–3\n|- bgcolor=\"#edbebf\"\n| 6 || June 17 || @ Boston || 92–131 || Bryant (47) || Odom (16) || Odom (5) || TD Banknorth Garden18,624 || 2–4\n|-\n\nPlayer stats\n\nRegular season \n\n*Total for entire season including previous team(s)\n\nPlayoffs\n\nAwards, records and milestones\n\nAll-Star Game\n Kobe Bryant was named as a starter in the 2008 NBA All-Star Game.\n\nAwards\n Kobe Bryant was named the Western Conference Player of the Week for games played January 7, 2008 through January 13, 2008.\n Kobe Bryant was named the Western Conference Player of the Week for games played February 25, 2008 through March 2, 2008.\n Kobe Bryant was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for February 2008.\n Kobe Bryant was named the Western Conference Player of the Week for games played March 31, 2008 through April 6, 2008.\n Kobe Bryant was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for April 2008.\n Phil Jackson was named the Western Conference Coach of the Month for April 2008.\n\nMilestones\n On December 23, 2007 Kobe Bryant became the youngest NBA player to score 20,000 points.\n Sasha Vujacic set the highest 3 pointer shot percentage for a season in Lakers history (43.7%).\n\nSeason\n Kobe Bryant was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player for the 2008 season\n Kobe Bryant was named to the All-NBA Team First Team\n Kobe Bryant was named to the NBA All-Defensive Team\n\nTransactions\nThe Lakers have been involved in the following transactions during the 2007–08 season.\n\nTrades\n\nFree agents\n\nReferences\n\nWestern Conference (NBA) championship seasons\nLos Angeles Lakers seasons\nLos Angle\nLos Angle\nLos Angle"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | How did he do on the team? | 2 | How did Kobe Bryant do on the national team? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"\"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",
"The Migraine Disability Assessment Test (MIDAS) is a test used by doctors to determine how severely migraines affect a patient's life. Patients are asked questions about the frequency and duration of their headaches, as well as how often these headaches limited their ability to participate in activities at work, at school, or at home.\n\nThe test was evaluated by the professional journal Neurology in 2001; it was found to be both reliable and valid.\n\nQuestions\nThe MIDAS contains the following questions:\n\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss work or school because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last 3 months was your productivity at work or school reduced by half or more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 1 where you missed work or school.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you not do household work because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last three months was your productivity in household work reduced by half of more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 3 where you did not do household work.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss family, social or leisure activities because of your headaches?\n\nThe patient's score consists of the total of these five questions. Additionally, there is a section for patients to share with their doctors:\n\nWhat your Physician will need to know about your headache:\n\nA. On how many days in the last 3 months did you have a headache?\n(If a headache lasted more than 1 day, count each day.)\t\n\nB. On a scale of 0 - 10, on average how painful were these headaches? \n(where 0 = no pain at all and 10 = pain as bad as it can be.)\n\nScoring\nOnce scored, the test gives the patient an idea of how debilitating his/her migraines are based on this scale:\n\n0 to 5, MIDAS Grade I, Little or no disability \n\n6 to 10, MIDAS Grade II, Mild disability\n\n11 to 20, MIDAS Grade III, Moderate disability\n\n21+, MIDAS Grade IV, Severe disability\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMigraine Treatment\n\nMigraine"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics? | 3 | How did the US national team do in the 2008 Olympics? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | true | [
"\"How Do You Do It?\" was the debut single by Liverpudlian band Gerry and the Pacemakers. It was written by Mitch Murray. The song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 11 April 1963, where it stayed for three weeks.\n\nHistory\nThe song was written by Mitch Murray, who offered it to Adam Faith and Brian Poole but was turned down. George Martin of EMI, feeling the song had enormous hit potential, decided to pick it up for the new group he was producing, the Beatles, as the A-side of their first single. The Beatles recorded the song on 4 September 1962 with Ringo Starr on drums. The group was initially opposed to recording it, feeling that it did not fit their sound, but worked out changes from Murray's demo-disc version. These included a new introduction, vocal harmony, an instrumental interlude, small lyric changes and removal of the half-step modulation for the last verse. Although Murray disliked their changes, the decision not to release the Beatles' version was primarily a business one. In fact, George Martin came very close to issuing \"How Do You Do It?\" as the Beatles' first single before settling instead on \"Love Me Do\", recorded during the same sessions. Martin commented later: \"I looked very hard at 'How Do You Do It?', but in the end I went with 'Love Me Do', it was quite a good record.\" McCartney would remark: \"We knew that the peer pressure back in Liverpool would not allow us to do 'How Do You Do It'.\"\n\nThe Beatles' version of \"How Do You Do It?\" was officially unissued for over 30 years, finally seeing release in November 1995 on the retrospective Anthology 1.\n\nWhile the Beatles' recording remained in the vaults, Martin still had faith in the song's appeal. Consequently, he had another new client, Gerry and the Pacemakers, record \"How Do You Do It?\" as their debut single in early 1963. This version of \"How Do You Do It?\", also produced by Martin, became a number-one hit in the UK until it was replaced by \"From Me to You\" (the Beatles' third single). It was the title song of a 7-inch EP that also featured \"Away From You\", \"I Like It\" and \"It's Happened to Me\" (Columbia SEG8257, released July 1963).\n\nChart performance\nGerry and the Pacemakers' version of \"How Do You Do It?\" was initially issued in the US and Canada in the spring of 1963, but made no impact on the charts. After the group had issued several chart singles in North America, the track was reissued in the summer of 1964. \"How Do You Do It?\" entered the US charts on 5 July 1964, eventually reaching number nine; it did even better in Canada, peaking at number six. Billboard described the song as a \"top-rated teen ballad\" with a \"great beat for dancing.\" Cash Box described it as a \"bright jumper...that's sure to get chart action right off the bat\" and also as \"a charming, teen-angled stomp-atwist’er...that the outfit knocks out in very commercial solo vocal and combo instrumental manner.\"\n\nIn their native UK, the single reached number one in the charts, staying there for three weeks in total.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nGerry Marsden fan site\nClassic Bands history page\n\n1963 songs\n1963 debut singles\nSongs written by Mitch Murray\nGerry and the Pacemakers songs\nThe Beatles songs\nDick and Dee Dee songs\nSong recordings produced by George Martin\nUK Singles Chart number-one singles\nColumbia Graphophone Company singles",
"\"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"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,"
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Kobe Bryant's national team career besides going to the 2008 Olympics? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
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"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | What colleges did Bryant consider playing for? | 5 | What colleges did Kobe Bryant consider playing for? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
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Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"The Shaq–Kobe feud was the conflict between National Basketball Association (NBA) players Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, who played together for the Los Angeles Lakers from 1996 to 2004.\n\nThe two won three consecutive NBA championships (2000, 2001, 2002), and made an NBA Finals appearance in 2004. O'Neal was the NBA Finals MVP in each of their victories. Personal differences and arguments over their respective roles on the Lakers were followed by a trade that sent O'Neal to the Miami Heat while Bryant was re-signed as a free agent by the Lakers. Lakers head coach Phil Jackson wrote a 2004 book, The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul, reflecting on the troubles Bryant and O'Neal had during their last season together.\n\nOrigins: 1996–1999\n\n1996–1997\n\nIn 1996, the Los Angeles Lakers acquired the draft rights to high school player Kobe Bryant from the Charlotte Hornets by trading established center Vlade Divac. No NBA team had previously drafted a guard straight from high school. After freeing up salary by parting with other veteran players, they signed free agent All-Star center Shaquille O'Neal later that year. The two sparred in their first three seasons playing together from 1996–1999. Bryant kept his teammates at a distance, answering non-basketball questions with one- or two-word responses. O'Neal told the Lakers when Bryant arrived, \"I'm not gonna be babysitting.\" Bryant had extreme confidence in his ability, which was unusual for an 18-year-old. Some teammates interpreted Bryant's confidence as arrogance. O'Neal was wary of Bryant, as a rookie, boasting that he would lead the Lakers in scoring and be the best player in the league. Lakers general manager Jerry West criticized O'Neal's leadership for hazing Bryant that season. While O'Neal's personality was good-humored, Bryant's demeanor was all-business and was interpreted by some teammates as selfishness. O'Neal began calling Bryant showboat because of his flashy offensive moves. In an overtime playoff loss to the Utah Jazz that eliminated the Lakers, O'Neal fouled out with two minutes remaining in regulation. Lakers coach Del Harris designed the Laker offense around the rookie Bryant, who went on to shoot four air balls. Harris explained that Bryant's one-on-one skills made him the best choice. After the game, O'Neal put his arm around Bryant and told him there would be other opportunities. West said the team's shortcoming made O'Neal angry since he was going to be judged by the team's success.\n\n1997–1998\nBryant was assigned by the Lakers to play in the 1997 NBA Summer League to improve as a team player and learn where to send the ball when he drew double teams. The following season, Bryant was voted as a starter in the 1998 All-Star Game though he was a reserve on the Lakers. The Lakers struggled after the All-Star break, losing seven of their first 12 games, and Bryant had a stretch where he made only 30 of 100 shots. O'Neal wanted a championship immediately, and he did not want to wait for Bryant to mature as a player. Harris thought the NBA and its television broadcaster, NBC, were overexposing Bryant and that he became more of a one-on-one player after the break. Bryant's playing time became reduced. The Lakers were eliminated in the 1998 playoffs in the conference finals after they were swept by the Jazz, 4–0.\n\n1998–1999\nThe team's lockout-shortened 50-game 1998–99 season included a brief stint as a player by Dennis Rodman, the firing of head coach Harris, and the interim head coaching stint of former Laker player Kurt Rambis. During the lockout, O'Neal, Bryant, Derek Fisher, and Corie Blount played a two-on-two basketball game. Bryant was always a physical player during practice. Other players, though, disliked Bryant's approach to practice. Fisher said, \"That was really the way we all should have been playing. With Kobe's spirit.\" During the game, O'Neal slapped Bryant. Fisher said neither O'Neal nor Bryant really started it, as they were both being physical. During the season, the team would blame their problems on what they felt was Bryant's selfish play. At one point, O'Neal pointed at Bryant and told reporters in the locker room, \"There's the problem.\" Bryant's jerseys were outselling O'Neal's in Southern California sporting goods stores, and rumors started that O'Neal was jealous, as he was with Penny Hardaway when they played together in Orlando. \"That's far from the truth\", said Fisher. \"All Shaq wants to do is win.\" Asked if he helped Bryant through his growing pains, O'Neal said \"I try not to help guys out too much. Experience is the best teacher ... Kobe's a great player ... He's a new, up-and-coming kid.\" O'Neal thought Rambis favored Bryant. Rambis asked O'Neal, the veteran team leader, to heal the rift and talk to Bryant. Rambis said O'Neal gave him a \"blank, cold stare.\" The rift between O'Neal and Bryant continued into the playoffs. While the Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets in the first round of that year's NBA Playoffs, they were ultimately swept 4–0 by the San Antonio Spurs in the second round.\n\nThree-peat: 1999–2002\n\n1999–2000\n\nDuring the 1999 offseason, West and Lakers owner Jerry Buss agreed to sign the then six-time NBA champion Phil Jackson to a five-year $30 million contract to be the team's new head coach entering the 1999–2000 season. Buss was previously a believer in spending conservatively on coaches, but O'Neal and Bryant both encouraged West to hire Jackson. Jackson decided that the offense would revolve around O'Neal, who would be given responsibility to distribute the ball. Jackson also wanted better leadership, physical conditioning, and defense from O'Neal. The coach chose to develop a close relationship with O'Neal and not Bryant. Jackson calculated that O'Neal's personality craved such a relationship. Bryant missed the season's first 15 games due to a broken right wrist, allowing the team to focus on O'Neal as Jackson had planned. The results of Jackson's hiring were promising, as the Lakers amassed a 67–15 record (one of the best records in league history). O'Neal led the league in scoring, averaging 29.7 points per game, and he won his first NBA Most Valuable Player Award. During the playoffs, the Lakers fought off the eighth-seeded Sacramento Kings in five games, and then defeated the Phoenix Suns in the second round, four games to one.\n\nIt was in the 2000 Western Conference Finals that a defining moment of O'Neal's and Bryant's on-court success together occurred. The Lakers were leading the Portland Trail Blazers three games to one, before dropping Game 5 at home and Game 6 in Portland. The Blazers were leading the decisive Game 7, putting the Lakers on the brink of elimination. Portland led by 15 points early in the fourth quarter, before the Lakers mounted a 25–4 rally to take the lead. The comeback run culminated as Bryant drove the lane and threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal for a one-handed slam dunk after which O'Neal ran upcourt with his mouth agape and both index fingers waving. Bryant extended his hand to O'Neal for a high five, but O'Neal in his celebration did not notice.\nThe Lakers won the game 89–84, and the 13 point comeback after three quarters was the most in a Game 7 in the NBA playoffs. O'Neal had 18 points and 9 rebounds, and Bryant had 25 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists and 4 blocked shots. The two players complimented each other on the alley-oop play after the game, and assistant coach Tex Winter thought they came to respect each other. The Lakers went on to defeat the Indiana Pacers in six games and won their first NBA championship since 1988. The Lakers led the series 2–0 behind O'Neal's dominating presence. The Lakers lost Game 3, which Bryant missed with an ankle injury. After O'Neal fouled out in overtime of Game 4, Jackson spread the floor and had Bryant take over the offense and lead the team to victory. Leading 110–109 with 1:32 remaining in Game 6, Jackson again spread the offense—even with O'Neal on the floor—and again allowed Bryant to take over; the Lakers won the game, 116–111, and the championship. In the ensuing celebration, Bryant was the first person to embrace O'Neal.\n\nThe season was not without confrontation, as O'Neal in one team meeting said, \"I have something to say. I think Kobe is playing too selfishly for us to win.\" O'Neal felt pressure to be leader of the team and was upset with Bryant's shot selection. Teammate Ron Harper helped mediate the differences between O'Neal and Bryant. According to Jackson, \"Kobe didn't have a selfish agenda; he just felt that the way he had been playing was the best way he could contribute. Gradually, he's seen there is a different way to contribute that incorporates more of the team.\" Upon arriving to the Lakers that season, Winter said he was stunned to discover the level of hatred O'Neal expressed toward Bryant. \"There was a lot of hatred in [O'Neal's] heart ... Kobe just took it and kept going.\" O'Neal regularly expressed to management that he did not believe the team could win a championship with Bryant. Winter observed that O'Neal influenced the entire team against Bryant. Winter thought that Bryant made it a point to get the ball to O'Neal that year, but O'Neal did not appreciate what Bryant was doing to help him. During that season's All-Star Game, Bryant did not participate in the Slam Dunk Contest and a matchup against Vince Carter, following Jackson's request to pass on individual accomplishments to keep the focus on the team. During All-Star warm-ups, O'Neal mimicked Bryant's crossover dribble but threw the ball into the stands to accentuate Bryant's turnovers. O'Neal said it was an inside joke between Kobe and him. Jackson and Winter relied on the triangle offense to heal the relationship between O'Neal and Bryant. The coaches believed that the offense was so structured that the relationship between the two players would be smoother on the court. The coaches would also tell the team they did not see the selfishness in Bryant that the players saw. Winter even put together a video for O'Neal to show that Bryant was playing his role correctly.\n\n2000–2001\n\nIn 2001, the Lakers won the title again; however, O'Neal and Bryant began feuding during the season. O'Neal came into training camp out of shape, which disappointed Jackson and also Bryant, who worked hard over the offseason to improve his game. Bryant was leading the league in scoring as 2001 began, and Jackson said Bryant was playing the best ball of his career. O'Neal was shooting below 50 percent during stretches, and his free throw shooting was in the 20 percent range. O'Neal said of the Lakers in January, \"When it was clear that everything went through me, the outcome of it was (a record of) 67–15, playing with enthusiasm, the city jumping up and down and a parade. And now we're 23–11. You figure it out ... I don't know why anybody else would want to change – other than selfish reasons.\" Bryant responded that it was a different year and the roster had undergone some changes and \"things change, things evolve, and you just have to grow with that change.\" Lakers assistant coach Bill Bertka said a key factor was the team's defense after losing Fisher for most of the season. O'Neal requested a trade after a blowout win against the Phoenix Suns where Bryant scored 38 and O'Neal scored 18. Jackson commented that their actions were \"juvenile\" and they should appreciate each other and play as a team. Bryant would be criticized for forcing his offense and not involving his teammates enough. Even O'Neal's stepfather was overheard yelling at Bryant to pass the ball during a game. Bryant told Jackson that the \"(triangle) offense is so simple. It doesn't display my talent ... it doesn't give me what I have to have for my game.\" According to Bryant, the team's defense was the problem and not his increased role in the offense. Bryant said that \"scoring shouldn't affect (O'Neal's) defense\", while O'Neal maintained that \"if the big dog ain't me, then the house won't get guarded – period.\" Due to O'Neal's sensitivity toward criticism, Jackson overlooked O'Neal's shortcomings while maintaining his criticism of Bryant. West told O'Neal that he also had personal rivalries when he played with all-time greats Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor, but O'Neal needed to \"stop being a baby ... put the team's success first.\"\n\nMagic Johnson later noticed a change in O'Neal: \"Shaq is saying 'It's me. I'm the one who has to get into shape, I'm the one who has to be ready for the second half run. I'm the one who has to close the middle down like I did last year.' ... He's not blaming everybody else.\" Fisher returned on March 13, upgrading the team's defense. The Lakers won their last eight games to finish the regular season with 56 wins. O'Neal averaged 33.7 points over the final 11 games. Bryant, upon returning from an injury, was willing to build off of O'Neal now that the center was in shape and playing defense. Bryant would play unselfishly in the playoffs. O'Neal referred to Bryant as \"[his] idol\" and \"the best player in the league, by far\" following a victory in Game 1 of that year's Western Conference Finals. The Lakers won the championship after a then-historic 15-1 postseason record. After the lone loss, which was in the opening game of the NBA Finals against the Philadelphia 76ers, Jackson criticized O'Neal for his lack of defense. Before the following game, Lakers coach Phil Jackson growled at O'Neal, \"Don't be afraid to block a shot!\" after O'Neal failed to block a shot in Game 1. O'Neal finished Game 2 with 28 points, 20 rebounds, 9 assists and 8 blocks.\n\n2001–2002\nNot much was made public about the feud in the 2001-02 season as the team was set back by injuries, personal tragedies, and national news. O'Neal missed training camp due to surgery on an arthritic toe. He chose not to undergo a more involved surgery that would have kept him out of action for a longer period of time. Still, his toe bothered him throughout the season. Jackson also missed most of camp due to the death of his 94-year-old mother, and Bryant returned to Philadelphia to bury his grandfather. Combined with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, O'Neal said it would be hard for basketball players to be divided by pettiness.\n\nDespite the rocky season, the Lakers won their third consecutive championship, defeating the New Jersey Nets by a 4–0 margin. It was the Lakers' first championship sweep in their history, and O'Neal won his third consecutive NBA Finals MVP. Bryant and O'Neal were complimentary of each other afterwards.\n\nFinal years as teammates: 2002–2004\n\n2002–2003\nThe 2002–03 season began with the three-time defending champions getting off to one of their worst starts. The team was eight games under .500 at 11–19 with their return to the playoffs being questionable. O'Neal was sidelined with hallux rigidus, a degenerative arthritic condition in his toe. O'Neal could have had surgery on his toe early in the summer (which would have allowed him to return to playing sooner), but he decided to wait and have the surgery performed not long before the Lakers' pre-season training camp began. He said, \"I got hurt on company time, so I’ll rehab on company time.\" O'Neal debated whether to have a more invasive surgery that would have kept him out an additional three months, but he opted against the more involved procedure. During the season, Bryant had a nine-game streak where he scored at least 40 points and a 13-game streak where he scored 35 or better. Still, the relationship between O'Neal and Bryant remained peaceful. Jackson ordered Bryant to be more aggressive. The Lakers ended that season with the 5th seed in the Western Conference, failing to get home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. They defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in six games, but were eliminated by eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in the conference semifinals.\n\n2003–2004\nThe subsequent off-season included accusations and then charges of rape by Bryant in Colorado. On July 16, a little more than two weeks after the initial assault allegations, the Lakers announced the signings of veteran free agents and former All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton, who were recruited by O'Neal. After the signings, the Lakers were widely considered the favorite to win the NBA title. However, even with these additions, the Lakers would not be able to avoid controversy.\n\nO'Neal said that the past comments made to the press by him and by Bryant were \"almost like a game.\" They could handle it until the 2003–04 season. Just prior to the season, Bryant privately warned Jackson, \"If [O'Neal] starts saying [unreasonable] things in the press, I'll fire back ... I've had it.\" There were no public indications of animosity between the two since the 2000–2001 season. With Bryant absent from camp due to his legal situation and his recovery from knee surgery, O'Neal said \"the full team is here.\" Later, after sitting out an exhibition game to rest a sore left heel, O'Neal said, \"I want to be right [in the regular season] for Derek [Fisher], Karl and Gary.\" Bryant was again ignored by O'Neal.\n\nWhen Bryant joined the Lakers in camp, O'Neal told reporters Bryant should look to be more of a passer than a scorer until Bryant's knee was fully healed. Bryant responded that he knew how to play the guard position, and O'Neal should worry about the low post. O'Neal responded, \"Just ask Karl and Gary why they came here. One person. Not two. One. Period.\" O'Neal agreed that Bryant could handle playing guard, but Bryant needed advice on how to play team ball. O'Neal added that he would voice his opinions as he saw fit because the Lakers were his team. He said that if Bryant—who was scheduled to become a free agent at season's end—didn't like what O'Neal had to say, Bryant should just opt out of his contract; O'Neal added, \"I ain't going nowhere.\" Jackson told the team to not discuss the problem further with reporters.\n\nIn a subsequent interview with Jim Gray of ESPN, Bryant questioned O'Neal's claims of team leadership. Bryant claimed that O'Neal came into training camp \"fat and out of shape\", that O'Neal blamed others for the team's defeats, and that O'Neal previously exaggerated the degree to which injuries had affected his game as a cover for simply being out of condition. Bryant criticized O'Neal's public lobbying for a contract extension when \"we have two future Hall of Famers (Malone and Payton) playing here pretty much for free\". He also criticized O'Neal for only taking responsibility when the team won. He accused O'Neal of threatening not to put forth his best effort if he was not passed the ball more often. Bryant was also upset that O'Neal did not personally contact him amidst his legal troubles in the summer. O'Neal had his bodyguard, Jerome Crawford, call Bryant. \"Everyone knows Jerome is me\", said O'Neal.\n\nThe following day, Lakers scout and former teammate Brian Shaw mediated the conflict between a furious O'Neal and Bryant. Shaw reprimanded O'Neal for yelling \"Pay me\" at Buss after dunking during a preseason game. Shaw turned to Bryant and told him that Jackson allowed O'Neal time to recover from the physical pounding he endured every season. Bryant, still disappointed at the support he received over the summer, told O'Neal, \"You're supposed to be my friend.\" Shaw questioned why he would believe that when Bryant did not join the team for dinners on the road, failed to attend O'Neal's wedding though invited, and did not invite a single teammate to his own wedding.\n\nJackson fined Bryant an undisclosed amount for defying his orders to not talk to the press. O'Neal would reveal after the season that he promised Malone and Payton he would cease feuding with Bryant in light of his legal situation with the rape charge. On opening night of the season, an injured Bryant sat down next to O'Neal during the Lakers' victory over the Dallas Mavericks. \"We put it behind us\", Bryant said. \"Shaq and I are going to move on, be teammates and help this team to a fourth title.\"\n\nThe Lakers started the season with a 21–3 record, and they received accolades as the greatest NBA team ever. However, the Lakers lost Malone for three months to a knee injury during the winter. During the All-Star break, Buss suspended contract negotiations with Jackson, who was seeking to double his salary from $6 million to $12 million on his expiring contract. Jackson had a contract offer outstanding from the Lakers, but he had not acted on it. The Lakers also suspended talks with O'Neal, who wanted an extension with a pay raise on his remaining three years for $30 million. The Lakers hoped O'Neal would take less money due to his age, physical conditioning, and games missed due to injuries. The Los Angeles Times wrote that both of the Lakers moves were a concession to Bryant. The Lakers slid towards mediocrity during the spring. Injuries hampered Los Angeles, keeping them as the fourth seed in the Western Conference midway through the season. The team never came together defensively. Winter said, \"Even though Shaq was a big presence, he was not a great shot blocker. And he didn't like to play the screen and roll, so he put his teammates in jeopardy. He didn't like to help [on defense].\" In March, after Bryant received internal criticism about his shot selection, he scored just one point while taking three shots in the first half against Orlando which the Lakers trailed by 11. He scored 37 in the second half and tied a team record with 24 in the fourth quarter as the Lakers won in overtime. Against Sacramento in April, Bryant took just one shot in the first half against tight defense. He finished the game with eight points. An anonymous teammate told the Los Angeles Times, \"I don't know how we can forgive him.\" Afterward, Jackson urged Bryant to be more aggressive offensively.\n\nThe Lakers ultimately entered the playoffs as the second seed, thanks to an overtime victory versus the Portland Trail Blazers on the final night of the season, due of a pair of buzzer beaters from Bryant. They defeated the Houston Rockets, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Minnesota Timberwolves before advancing to the 2004 NBA Finals, where they were considered a favorite to defeat the Detroit Pistons. However, after five games, the Lakers found themselves not only defeated but dominated by the Pistons, who won the NBA title. Winter said, \"Shaq defeated himself against Detroit. He played way too passively. He had one big game ... He's always interested in being a scorer, but he hasn't had nearly enough concentration on defense and rebounding.\"\n\nAfter the loss, the division between O'Neal and Bryant came to a head. At the news conference after the final game, O'Neal addressed the uncertainty around Coach Phil Jackson's now-expired contract, and Bryant's impending free agency, which meant that either or both might not return to the Lakers the next season. With regard to the problem of people possibly leaving the team, O'Neal commented that everyone including him would need to do what was best for themselves.\n\nEventually Jackson, a favorite of O'Neal, was not offered a new contract by the Lakers. Many sports analysts and spectators assumed that this was because of Bryant, who had at times voiced displeasure with Jackson's offensive scheme. However, Winter said Jackson announced at the All-Star break that he would not want to return to the Lakers if Bryant returned. Buss also longed for the Lakers to return to the fast break offense of Showtime. After learning of Jackson's departure and hearing Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak say he would consider trading him, O'Neal demanded to be traded. He made it clear that he felt the Laker organization was making moves designed primarily to placate Bryant, saying \"The direction they’re going ... I don’t want to be a part of this.\" Bryant, meanwhile, was involved in discussions with the Los Angeles Clippers. O'Neal's demand was soon indulged, as he was sent to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant, and a first-round draft pick. NBA coach and former player Doc Rivers called the relationship between O'Neal and Bryant the \"biggest travesty in sports\" because they should have remained teammates and won at least five championships together.\n\nO'Neal traded from Lakers: 2004–2006\n\n2004–2005\n\nA day after O'Neal was traded, Bryant re-signed with the Lakers for seven years and $136 million. Bryant said he enjoyed playing with both Jackson and O'Neal, and he said he did not influence the Lakers' decisions regarding the two. Regardless, newspapers the next day criticized Bryant for his alleged manipulation of the team. O'Neal added, \"When it came to my leaving, [Kobe] could have spoken up. He could have said something. He didn't say anything.\" Winter said, \"[O'Neal] left because he couldn't get what he wanted—a huge pay raise. There was no way ownership could give him what he wanted. Shaq's demands held the franchise hostage, and the way he went about it didn't please the owner too much.\"\n\nLater, news came out that Bryant made a reference about O'Neal and paying women for their discretion while being questioned by the police in 2003. According to reports, Bryant stated that he should have paid off his women so that they wouldn't say anything, like O'Neal. Bryant also stated that O'Neal would pay women up to US$1 million to stay quiet about their encounters with him. It also was reported that investigators had told O'Neal of Bryant's supposed statements shortly after the investigation had begun. O'Neal denied these claims, stating that Bryant had no idea about O'Neal's personal business since the two of them rarely spent any time together. O'Neal went as far as to say that he \"[wasn't] the one buying love, [Bryant was] the one buying love\", a reference to Bryant's purchase of a multi-million dollar diamond ring for his wife in the aftermath of the revelation that Bryant was unfaithful to her.\n\nIn August 2004, the NBA scheduled the Lakers and the Heat to play on Christmas Day. The game registered the NBA's highest regular season television ratings since 1998 and would hold its spot until a 2008 Christmas Day meeting between the Lakers and the Boston Celtics. In the lead-up to the game, O'Neal referred to Bryant as a \"Corvette\" and himself as a \"brick wall\" in an interview with ABC's Al Michaels during halftime of Monday Night Football.\n\nBefore the opening tip, Bryant and O'Neal did not talk, but did greet each other by bumping forearms. During the game, Bryant was fouled by O'Neal several times but the contacts were not excessive. O'Neal fouled out late in the fourth quarter but the Heat still won the game in overtime, led by up-and-coming star Dwyane Wade. Bryant missed a potentially game-winning shot as time expired. When asked about the brick wall comment, Bryant said, \"I knew there was a lot of talk about the brick wall and all that, but I think that was kind of just to hype the game. Hopefully, this is all behind us now.\" O'Neal shared a similar tone, saying \"I'm over it. It's old news to me.\" Bryant and O'Neal met on the court twice more during the season, once during the NBA All-Star Game and once more when the Lakers played the Heat on March 17, 2005.\n\n2005–2006\nIn the following season, Bryant and O'Neal did not engage in further public attacks. However, hard feelings were apparently still present when they refused to refer to each other by name while talking to the media. The Lakers and the Heat faced off again on Christmas Day in 2005, with the Heat winning the second time. Unlike last year, Bryant and O'Neal did not shake hands nor make eye contact with each other before and after the game. O'Neal said, \"It was just another game to me.\" Bryant said \"I wasn't even thinking about it. It is what it is.\"\n\nPrior to their January 16, 2006 meeting, O'Neal greeted Bryant on the court warmly, a departure from his previous attitude toward Bryant. The two shook hands and hugged before tip-off. After Bryant scored 81 points in a single game against the Toronto Raptors, O'Neal refused to comment to the media about it. O'Neal broke his silence a few weeks later during a media session at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, when he acknowledged that he watched Bryant's 81-point game and offered praise for the performance. During the All-Star Game itself, the two were seen laughing and joking together. O'Neal and the Heat won the NBA title that season. In his 2011 autobiography, Shaq Uncut: My Story, O'Neal wrote of the championship, \"I had proven I could win anywhere—not just with some shot-happy guard in Los Angeles.\"\n\nO'Neal indirectly referenced the feud in his cameo appearance in the 2006 movie Scary Movie 4. O'Neal is kidnapped in the movie in a Saw parody, and he hears a frightening voice. A terrified O'Neal then asks, \"Kobe?\"\n\nDe-escalation of the feud: 2006–2011\n\n2006–2007\nIn 2007, O'Neal said that Bryant should have won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, which was awarded to Dirk Nowitzki. During the offseason, Bryant was \"beyond furious\" at reports from a Laker insider that Bryant had insisted O'Neal be traded from the Lakers. Bryant reported that Buss said, \"I am not going to re-sign Shaq. I am not about to pay him $30 million a year or $80 million over three years ... His body is breaking down, and I don't want to pay that money to him when I can get value for him right now rather than wait ... It doesn't matter to me what you do in free agency because I do not want to pay [Shaq], period.\" O'Neal agreed with Bryant: \"There's no doubt in my mind Kobe is telling the truth. I believe him a thousand percent ... I would have respected Dr. Buss more as a man if he would have told me that himself, because I know he said it.\"\n\n2007–2008\nIn 2008, O'Neal reiterated his belief that Bryant deserved the MVP award. Bryant went on to win the award for the first time in his career that season. During the offseason, O'Neal was at a party, and got up to rap in front of the crowd. O'Neal mentioned Bryant multiple times in the rap, saying that \"Kobe couldn't do it without me\", referring to Bryant and the Lakers loss in the 2008 NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics. He also rapped, \"Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes\". During the rap, O'Neal also blamed his divorce on Bryant's comments to investigators in 2004 about O'Neal paying off women. Bryant commented that he \"didn't take (O'Neal's rap) any kind of way whatsoever.\" O'Neal later said he was freestyling and that \"it was all done in fun. Nothing serious whatsoever ... I'm totally cool with Kobe. No issue at all.\" Rap artist Snoop Dogg, a Laker fan, agreed that \"Shaq has all access and the right to do and say what he wants to say in fun, in the spirit of rap.\"\n\n2008–2009\nIn November of the 2008–2009 season, O'Neal told reporters that he believed the entire feud was the Lakers head coach Phil Jackson's fault. O'Neal later retracted the statement and apologized, interrupting one of Jackson's pre-game interviews to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. On January 29, 2009, in an interview with Stephen A. Smith, O'Neal claimed that the feud between him and Bryant was simply a marketing ploy, saying \"We helped you hype it up. I know what I'm doing, brother. I'm the smartest player in the world.\" On Bryant, O'Neal claimed that he \"always did love Kobe.\" On Jackson, O'Neal claimed he is \"the greatest coach ever, and he's done a lot for me. Phil's my guy. It's all marketing, baby.\" O'Neal also added that had he stayed with the Lakers, he and Bryant would have won another three or four titles. \"We're still the greatest little-man, big-man 1-2 punch ever created in the history of the game\", O'Neal said. At the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, O'Neal, Bryant, and Jackson were all reunited on the West squad. O'Neal and Bryant were both named co-MVPs for the game and were shown laughing and hugging during the game. O'Neal told Bryant to keep the MVP trophy, but Bryant instead gave it to O'Neal's son. For O'Neal, Bryant's gesture marked a turning point in their relationship. Bryant and the Lakers would go to face the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals. Shaq showed support for Kobe, on his Twitter page saying: \"thats right i am saying it today and today only, i want kobe bryant to get number 4, spread da word \".\n\n2009–2010\n\nAfter the Lakers once again won the title in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals, Bryant was asked what it meant to him personally. He responded, \"Just one more than Shaq ... I can take that to the bank.\" Bryant won five NBA titles and O'Neal won four. Bryant added, \"You guys know how I am. I don't forget anything.\" O'Neal again congratulated Bryant on his Twitter page: \"Congratulations Kobe, u deserve it. U played great. Enjoy it man enjoy it. I know what ur sayin 'Shaq how my ass taste' .\"\n\n2010–2011\nUpon hearing Bryant's comment about having more titles than O'Neal, Wyc Grousbeck, principal owner of the Boston Celtics, said to Danny Ainge, Celtics' president, \"Let's go get Shaq.\" O'Neal signed a two-year contract with the Celtics for the 2010–2011 and 2011–2012 season for the league minimum of $1.3 million and adding to the Celtics–Lakers rivalry. Bill Simmons of ESPN speculated that O'Neal wanted to tie Bryant with five titles and that still \"Shaq hates Kobe and Kobe hates Shaq.\" O'Neal said he didn't \"compete with little guys who run around dominating the ball, throwing up 30 shots a night – like D-Wade, Kobe.\" O'Neal added that he is only competing against Tim Duncan: \"If Tim Duncan gets five rings, then that gives some writer the chance to say 'Duncan is the best,' and I can't have that.\" Kobe and Shaq would play each other one last time on January 30, 2011, with Shaq's Celtics prevailing over the Kobe's Lakers in a 109–96 victory. However, O'Neal was held scoreless, as he was now relegated to a role player. The teams would face again a week and a half later, but O'Neal would not play as he was dealing with an injury.\n\nPost-playing careers\nO'Neal announced his retirement via social media on June 1, 2011. Two days later, O'Neal held a press conference at his home in Orlando to officially announce his retirement. When asked who was the greatest player he ever played with during his career, O'Neal did not answer, but Bryant was the only player whose name was mentioned. He also mentioned that his departure from Los Angeles has nothing to do with Kobe Bryant, saying \"the reason I left wasn't about what Kobe did; it was about something else. I was making maximum dollars and felt I deserved more. It was a business end.\" When asked whether leaving Los Angeles was a bad decision, he answered \"I don't like to live in a world of ifs, but if we would have stayed, possibly we could have got six [championships].\"\n\nAfter his retirement, O'Neal was hired by Turner Sports as an NBA analyst. When asked whether it would be difficult for him to criticize Bryant, he answered \"I have the ability and the backing to give fair criticism. The only time I have trouble with people giving criticism is when they haven't walked that walk. I've walked many walks in my 19-year career, so I think any criticism that I give should be fair.\" During the 2011 NBA lockout, Bryant discussed his problems with O'Neal with a radio station in Italy, saying \"I like players who workout. I used to do that 6–7 hours per day. I cannot stand players who practice for 30 minutes.\" O'Neal countered that he did not need to work out, and that \"My three Finals MVPs speaks for itself.\"\n\nOn February 6, 2012, Bryant passed O'Neal for fifth place on the all-time scoring list. Bryant said it was an honor because of their championships together. O'Neal congratulated Bryant, saying \"I'm proud of him. I'm happy for him, and, most of all, I want to thank him for being a part of the greatest 1-2 punch ever created, never to be duplicated.\" Bryant stated on radio the following day that he and O'Neal were never going to last as teammates. Bryant recalled: \"There was an interview that I heard Shaq do which he kind of threw down the challenge of me not being able to win without him. After I read that, I said, 'Aw, that's it.' Some comparison that he made with me and Penny Hardaway, and once I read that, I said, 'You know what? I can't finish my career with people saying that. There's no way.'\" In 2013, Bryant said that the two \"have a really, really good relationship now\", calling it \"a good lesson for all of us.\" He said the two had \"mutual respect\" for each other, while O'Neal commented that they had an \"athletic dislike\" for each other but \"never had a real dislike\". That year, the Lakers retired O'Neal's No. 34 during a halftime ceremony. Bryant did not attend the ceremony, but called O'Neal \"the most gifted physical specimen I've ever seen play this game\" in a recorded video during the event. Questioned about his absence, Bryant told the media, \"I appreciate you guys trying to start some stuff for old times' sake.\" Later, it came out that Bryant had missed the ceremony because he had been receiving treatment from the Lakers' training staff.\n\nIn 2015, O'Neal would launch The Big Podcast with Bryant as his first guest. O'Neal would introduce Bryant as \"the greatest Laker ever\" as the two reflected on their feud.\n\nIn November 2015, Bryant announced his intention to retire following the 2015–16 NBA season. On March 22, 2016, following a victory over the Memphis Grizzlies, the Inside the NBA crew held an interview with Bryant. In reference to his final career game against the Utah Jazz on April 13, O'Neal asked Bryant, “Can you promise me one thing? I need 50 [points] that night.” Bryant laughed and responded, “Uh, no ... absolutely not.\" Three weeks later, Bryant led the Lakers to a come-from-behind 101–96 victory over the Jazz with a 60–point performance, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter. He was then taken off the floor with 4.1 second remaining, to an uproarious Staples Center crowd. O'Neal, who was in attendance, embraced Bryant on the court shortly after the final buzzer. When asked about Kobe's legacy during a segment on TNT, Shaq repeated his praise of Bryant as \"the greatest Laker ever.\"\n\nOne year later, O'Neal was honored by the Lakers with a statue of his likeness outside Staples Center. Bryant was in attendance of the statue's unveiling and spoke at the event, which O'Neal said \"meant a lot\" to him. Addressing Kobe during the ceremony, O'Neal said, \"Next time we're out here for a statue, it'll probably be your statue.\"\n\nIn February 2018, both players recorded a Players Only special for NBA TV where they spoke about their history together, the mutual respect and appreciation, and explanations and regrets over the tensions and feud. Bryant also joked about having more championships than O'Neal.\n\nOn January 26, 2020, Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash along with seven other people. O'Neal expressed his sorrow on Twitter soon after official reports of Bryant's death were released. During Bryant's public memorial service on February 24, 2020, O'Neal was one of the major speakers, providing a speech on their time together as teammates.\n\nOn May 15, 2021, Bryant was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. O'Neal, who was present at the ceremony, said that while he and Bryant always argued, they always respected each other, and their respect was the reason they won three consecutive championships.\n\nHead-to-head meetings between O'Neal and Bryant\nO'Neal was 7–4 all-time against Bryant, though Bryant outscored O'Neal in each meeting.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\n1999–2000 NBA season\n2000–01 NBA season\n2001–02 NBA season\n2002–03 NBA season\n2003–04 NBA season\nHistory of sports in the United States\nIndividual rivalries in sports\nKobe Bryant\nLos Angeles Lakers\nMiami Heat\nNational Basketball Association rivalries\nShaquille O'Neal\nSports rivalries in the United States",
"Bryant & Stratton College (BSC) is a private college with campuses in New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as an online campus. Founded in 1854, the college offers associate degree programs at all campuses and bachelor's degree programs at some campuses. The college is approved by the New York State Board of Regents and accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.\n\nHistory\n\nJohn Collins Bryant, Henry Beadman Bryant, and Henry Dwight Stratton were early graduates of Folsom Business College in Cleveland, Ohio, which they later purchased from Ezekiel G. Folsom, who founded his school in 1848. Folsom was a former student of Platt Rogers Spencer who developed a standardized style of writing useful in business transactions before the invention of the typewriter.\n\nPlatt Spencer played a role in the formation of Bryant & Stratton College serving as a partner and teacher at the school which originally focused on bookkeeping and standardized penmanship. Bryant & Stratton College was organized in 1854 to provide practical workplace education, and was formerly known as Bryant and Stratton Business Institute. A year later they developed programs for women. The college became well known in the middle of the 19th century under Platt's influence.\n\nIn addition to the Cleveland school, Bryant and Stratton established business schools that operated under the name of Bryant & Stratton & Co. International Commercial Colleges in most major US cities. By 1864 as many as 40 to 50 schools existed. Tuition was $40 for an entire program of study. The chain was not without controversy about its marketing and business practices, and it declined in size after the death of Stratton.\n\nIn 2008, a private equity firm Parthenon Capital Partners bought a significant stake in the school.\n\nIn 2009, Bryant & Stratton was the first college to host an online graduation ceremony on Second Life.\n\nIn 2017, Bryant & Stratton Limited Partnership (family) acquired Parthenon Capital Partners' stake in the schools.\n\nIn 2018, Bryant and Stratton opened a school in Racine, Wisconsin, closed its downtown Milwaukee campus, and moved its Cleveland campus to Solon in Ohio.\n\nIn December 2020, Bryant & Stratton College announced that they would be donating the school to their non-profit family foundation.\n\nOrganization\n\nToday, there are 19 physical locations and an online education division. The board chair of the school is Bryant Prentice III, great-great grandson of John Collins Bryant. The current president of Bryant & Stratton is Francis J. Felser, who has a doctorate from University of Phoenix. and has worked in various capacities at the school for more than 25 years.\n\nAcademics\n\nFaculty\nBryant & Stratton's online faculty consists of 40 full-time instructors and 430 part-time instructors. The Buffalo campus has 33 full-time instructors and 112 part-time instructors.\n\nPrograms \nBryant & Stratton College offers Associate's and bachelor's degrees in healthcare, business, homeland security, legal studies, design, early childhood education and technology (IT).\n\nStudent Outcomes\nAccording to the College Scorecard, Bryant & Stratton online has an 18 percent graduation rate and a median student debt after graduation ranging from $11,400 to $51,442. Median salary after attending ranges from 17, 859 to 41,937. Six percent of student debtors were making progress with their loans. College Navigator reports a 18 percent graduation rate and a 16 percent transfer-out rate.\n\nAthletics \n\nBryant & Stratton College has Junior College Division II sports at several campuses and actively recruits high school students.\n\nMen's sponsored sports by campus\n\nWomen's sponsored sports by campus\n\nCoed sponsored sports by campus\n\nAlumni\n\nNotable students of the school include Henry Ford, R.J. Reynolds and Joseph E. Seagram. \nLou Blonger, crime boss\nAlbert Elijah Dunning, theologian\nHenry Ford, car manufacturer, billionaire, philanthropist\nJohn W. Harreld, senator\nJames J. Heffernan, US representative\nAntonio Joseph, politician\nShalrie Joseph, head coach of the Grenada national football team\nJohn D. Larkin, founder of Larkin Company\nMartin B. Madden, U.S. representative\nJ. L. R. McCollum, member of the Wisconsin State Assembly\nTimothy McVeigh, American domestic terrorist\nJohn William Moore, US representative\nR. J. Reynolds, tobacco manufacturer\nJohn D. Rockefeller, oligarch, billionaire, philanthropist \nArthur Schoellkopf, industrialist\nJoseph E. Seagram, Canadian businessman (founder of Seagram Distillery) and politician\nCharles Woodruff, Brigadier General in the United States Army\n\nCampuses\nBryant & Stratton launched its online division in 1997. The college provides selected degrees over the Internet. According to College Navigator, approximately 40 percent of BSC's students are participating as online students.\n\nNew York State campuses can be found in Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, and six other locations. \nOhio has four campuses, including Akron. Virginia has campuses in Hampton, Richmond, and Virginia Beach. In Wisconsin, there are three campuses.\n\nFinances \nOn April 3, 2015, Bryant & Stratton College was placed on a Department of Education list to have its finances more closely scrutinized (a process called Heightened Cash Monitoring). Colleges placed on this list generally have federal funding restricted due to concerns of their financial responsibility.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nPrivate universities and colleges in New York (state)\nEducation in Buffalo, New York\nFor-profit universities and colleges in the United States\n1848 establishments in Ohio\nUniversities and colleges in Erie County, New York\nUniversities and colleges in Syracuse, New York\nPrivate universities and colleges in Wisconsin\nPrivate universities and colleges in Ohio\nPrivate universities and colleges in Virginia\nUniversities and colleges in Milwaukee\nUSCAA member institutions"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so.",
"What colleges did Bryant consider playing for?",
"Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list;"
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | What did people say about his decision to go pro? | 6 | What did people say about Kobe Bryant's decision to go pro? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | true | [
"Vamos a Cuba (Spanish, 'Let's Go to Cuba') is a children's book about Cuba.\n\nCritics say that the book does not accurately represent life in the communist state. When Miami-Dade County Public Schools attempted to remove this book from the public school's library system the ACLU filed a lawsuit saying that it was a violation of the First Amendment.\n\nA federal appeals court ruled that the Miami-Dade School Board did not violate the Constitution in 2006 when it removed a controversial children's book about Cuba from the public schools' library system.\n\nIn a 2-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said the board did not breach the First Amendment, and ordered a Miami federal judge to lift a preliminary injunction that had allowed Vamos a Cuba to be checked out from school libraries.\n\nThe US Supreme Court declined to hear the legal challenge, so the book removal stands.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWPLG news article\nACLU's legal argument\n\n2001 children's books\nBooks about Cuba\nChildren's non-fiction books\nAmerican picture books\nSpanish-language books",
"\"A Tout le Monde\" is a song by American heavy metal band Megadeth, featured on their 1994 studio album Youthanasia. It was released as a single in February 1995 through Capitol Records. The song was later remade and reissued as \"À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)\", featuring Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil, on Megadeth's 2007 studio album United Abominations. The song's chorus, \"à tout le monde, à tous mes amis, je vous aime, je dois partir\", translated into English is, \"to the whole world, to all my friends, I love you, I have to go\", which prompted controversy after accusations that it was pro-suicide.\n\nMusic and lyrics\nThe music video for \"A Tout le Monde\" was banned by MTV, who claimed it was pro-suicide. However, in an interview conducted around 1994, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine stated: It's not a suicide song. What it is, it's, you, it's when people have a loved one that dies and they end on a bad note, you know, they wish that they could say something to them. So this is an opportunity for the deceased to say something before they go. And it was my impression of what I would like to say to people, if I had say, 3 seconds to do so in life before I died I'd say to the entire world, to all my friends, I love you all, and now I must go. These are the last words I'll ever speak, and they'll set me free. I don't have to say I'm sorry, I don't have to say I'm going to miss you, or I'll wait for ya. You know, I'll just say I loved you all, good, bad, indifferent, I loved you all.\n\nTitle\nThe song's title, \"A tout le monde\", is French for \"To all the world\" or \"To everyone\". The song's chorus, \"à tout le monde, à tous mes amis, je vous aime, je dois partir\", translated to English is respectively: \"To everyone, to all my friends, I love you, I have to leave\".\n\nThe original release of the track does not feature a grave accent on the letter \"à\" anywhere within the title, liner notes, lyrics or cover art. This was later rectified on the 2007 version.\n\nTrack listing\nUS promotional edition\n\nDutch edition\n\n2007 version\n\nThe song was remade in 2007 on the album United Abominations as \"À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)\", sung as a duet between Mustaine and Cristina Scabbia, singer of Italian metal band Lacuna Coil. The guitars for the song are all in standard tuning (bringing the song to F-sharp minor), whereas the original was recorded a half-step down in E♭ tuning (which put the song in F minor). The new version is also slightly faster, and the guitar solo performed by Glen Drover is musically 4 bars longer than the original by Marty Friedman. \"À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)\" was the first single released from the album, with a new music video made for it. The song's title has been revised in order to distinguish it from the original, although this alteration does not appear on some pressings of the album. The title also features the aforementioned grave accent on the letter \"à\", which was omitted on the original version.\n\nReception\nOn June 11, 2007, the video for the single won its sixteenth victory in the context of the one-on-one video show, L'Ultime Combat des Clips, aired Monday to Thursday on the French-Canadian music channel, Musique Plus. Winning sixteen consecutive times earned them a star in the show's hall of fame. Despite the accolades, both the original music video for \"A Tout le Monde\" and its remake remain banned by MTV, possibly for lyrical content that they deem to be pertaining to committing suicide. The duet version did, however, air on MTV2's Headbangers Ball upon release.\n\nPersonnel\nYouthanasia version:\nDave Mustaine – lead vocals, rhythm guitar\nMarty Friedman – lead guitar\nDavid Ellefson – bass\nNick Menza – drums, percussion\n\n''United Abominations'' version:\nDave Mustaine – lead vocals, rhythm guitar\nGlen Drover – lead guitar\nJames LoMenzo – bass\nShawn Drover – drums, percussion\nCristina Scabbia – guest vocals\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1990s ballads\n1994 songs\n1995 singles\n2007 singles\nCapitol Records singles\nFranglais songs\nHeavy metal ballads\nMegadeth songs\nMusic videos directed by Wayne Isham\nSongs about death\nSongs written by Dave Mustaine\nMale–female vocal duets\nMacaronic songs\n\npt:À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)\nru:À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so.",
"What colleges did Bryant consider playing for?",
"Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list;",
"What did people say about his decision to go pro?",
"Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years)."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | How did he perform in his rookie year? | 7 | How did Kobe Bryant perform in his rookie year? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"Tim Conley (born December 8, 1958) is an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour, Nationwide Tour and most recently the Champions Tour.\n\nConley joined the PGA Tour in 1993, earning his card through qualifying school. He did not perform well on Tour in his rookie year but he did win the Nike Knoxville Open on the Nationwide Tour. In 1994 he played on the Nationwide Tour full-time and recorded a runner up finish but only made 7 of 21 cuts. He continued to play on the Nationwide Tour and won the Nike Gateway Classic in 1996 in a playoff. He returned to the PGA Tour in 1998, earning his card through qualifying school. He had another poor year on Tour but did finish 5th at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, his best finish on the PGA Tour of his career. He returned to the Nationwide Tour in 1999 where he would play until 2000. He played in a limited number of events until 2007 when he joined the Champions Tour. He finished 83rd on the money list in his rookie year on Tour, missing only one cut in 13 events. He played in fewer events in 2008 and 2009 and has not played on the Tour since.\n\nProfessional wins (9)\n\nNike Tour wins (2)\n\nNike Tour playoff record (1–0)\n\nOther wins (7)\nthis list may be incomplete\n1989 Bermuda Open\n1992 Kansas Open\n2004 Caribbean Open\n2005 Georgia Open\n2006 Bermuda Open\n2007 Bermuda Open\n1 win on the NGA Hooters Tour\n\nResults in major championships\n\nCUT = missed the halfway cut\nNote: Conley only played in the U.S. Open.\n\nSee also\n1992 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates\n1997 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican male golfers\nPGA Tour golfers\nPGA Tour Champions golfers\nAkron Zips men's golfers\nGolfers from Cleveland\n1958 births\nLiving people",
"Clayton Beams (born 1 September 1991), is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League (AFL).\n\nHe was selected by the Brisbane Lions as a priority Queensland rookie selection (pick 76 overall) in the 2009 Rookie Draft from AFLQ club Labrador. He had only joined the Labrador team a few months earlier after seeing his brother Dayne perform well for in the AFL.\n\nOn the back of strong performances in the Brisbane Lions reserves side throughout 2010 and his selection in the Queensland state side, Beams was officially elevated at the 2010 AFL Draft and will commence the 2011 AFL season on the Brisbane Lions senior list. He was injured for a couple of games during the early part of the season\n\nHe is the younger brother of former Brisbane Lions captain and former Collingwood premiership player Dayne Beams.\n\nIn October 2017, Beams was delisted by Brisbane, but was later recruited as a rookie in Brisbane. \n\nIn September 2018, Beams was delisted again by Brisbane.\n\nAFL career\n\n2011: Debut\n\nBeams made his debut against Fremantle in Round 1 at the Gabba, with 13 disposals. He played five of the first seven games of the season before breaking his foot and did not play for the remainder of the year.\n\n2012\nBeams played in the round 1 victory against Melbourne and was rewarded the round 1 nomination for the 2012 AFL Rising Star for tagging Brent Moloney out of the game, whilst still collecting 25 possessions himself. He was the first Lion to be nominated since Jack Redden in 2010.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1991 births\nLiving people\nBrisbane Lions players\nLabrador Australian Football Club players\nAustralian rules footballers from Queensland\nSportspeople from the Gold Coast, Queensland"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so.",
"What colleges did Bryant consider playing for?",
"Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list;",
"What did people say about his decision to go pro?",
"Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years).",
"How did he perform in his rookie year?",
"He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run,"
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | Did he win any awards for his rookie year? | 8 | Did Kobe Bryant win any awards for his rookie year? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"The National Basketball League Rookie of the Year is an annual National Basketball League (NBL) award given since the 1983 NBL season to the top rookie of the regular season. For a player to be considered for Rookie of the Year, they must be an unrestricted player who has never previously played professionally in the NBL or any other league (excluding in New Zealand). At the season's end, each club nominates one player for the award with the head coach, one assistant coach and the team captain then voting in a 3-2-1 format (3 votes being indicative of the most deserving). Voters are not allowed to vote for players from their own team.\n\nWinners \n\n|}\n\nReferences\n\nRookie of the Year\nAwards established in 1983\nRookie player awards",
"Wayne Giardino (November 7, 1943 – February 16, 2021) was a Canadian athlete and coach in Canadian football. Giardino was an award-winning linebacker and Grey Cup Champion in the Canadian Football League with the Ottawa Rough Riders.\n\nA graduate of Florida State University, Giardino joined the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1967. Rushing 3 times for 15 yards and blocking a kick in his rookie season was good enough to win the Gruen Trophy as best rookie in the East (this at a time when only Canadians were eligible for the award.) He later became a starting linebacker and dependable back up fullback, his best year being 1971 when he rushed for 201 yards. On defence, he intercepted six passes, returning three for touchdowns, and took fumble recoveries back for another three touchdowns, including 146 yards in 1972, still the second best in CFL history On offence, he rushed for 536 yards and caught 44 passes during his career. He was a Grey Cup champion three times: 1968, 1969 and 1973. Finally, he was the head coach of the Ottawa Sooners junior team in 1994, leading them to a 7 win and 2 loss season.\n\nAwards and honours\n 1967 - Gruen Trophy\n 2014 - Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame\n\nReferences\n\n1943 births\n2021 deaths\nCanadian Football League Rookie of the Year Award winners\nCanadian players of American football\nFlorida State Seminoles football players\nOttawa Rough Riders players\nPlayers of Canadian football from Ontario\nSportspeople from Peterborough, Ontario"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so.",
"What colleges did Bryant consider playing for?",
"Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list;",
"What did people say about his decision to go pro?",
"Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years).",
"How did he perform in his rookie year?",
"He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run,",
"Did he win any awards for his rookie year?",
"I don't know."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 9 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Kobe Bryant besides his rookie year? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so.",
"What colleges did Bryant consider playing for?",
"Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list;",
"What did people say about his decision to go pro?",
"Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years).",
"How did he perform in his rookie year?",
"He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run,",
"Did he win any awards for his rookie year?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | What have his critics said about him? | 10 | What have Kobe Bryant's critics said about him? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
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| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | false | [
"The saying of Jesus concerning his true relatives is found in the Canonical gospels of Mark and Matthew.\n\nIn the Bible\nFrom :\n There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing\n without, sent unto him, calling him. \nAnd the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him,\n Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. \nAnd he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my\n brethren? \nAnd he looked round about on them which sat about him, and\n said, Behold my mother and my brethren! \nFor whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my\n brother, and my sister, and mother. \n\nFrom :\n While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and\n his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. \nThen one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren\n stand without, desiring to speak with thee. \nBut he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my\n mother? and who are my brethren? \nAnd he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and\n said, Behold my mother and my brethren! \nFor whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in\n heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.\n\nApocryphal version\nA re-organized version also appears in the Gospel of Thomas (Patterson-Meyer Translation):\n 99 The disciples said to him, \"Your brothers and your mother are\n standing outside.\" He said to them, \"Those here who do what my\n Father wants are my brothers and my mother. They are the ones who\n will enter my Father's kingdom.\" \n 100 They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, \"The Roman\n emperor's people demand taxes from us.\" He said to them, \"Give the\n emperor what belongs to the emperor, give God what belongs to God,\n and give me what is mine.\" \n 101 \"Whoever does not hate [father] and mother as I do cannot be\n my [disciple], and whoever does [not] love [father and] mother as\n I do cannot be my [disciple]. For my mother [...], but my true\n [mother] gave me life.\" \n\nVerse 100 (Caesar's Coin) is similar to Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20.22-26. Verse 101 (Love Jesus/God more than your family) is similar to and .\n\nSayings of Jesus\nGospel episodes",
"The Ex is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Jesse Peretz and starring Zach Braff, Amanda Peet and Jason Bateman. The film had a wide release planned for January 19, 2007, and then March 9, 2007. It was originally promoted under the working title Fast Track. It was released on May 11, 2007. Co-stars include Charles Grodin, in his first film appearance since 1994, Donal Logue and Mia Farrow.\n\nThe film generally received negative reviews from critics. It had a gross of $5,178,640.\n\nPlot\nLiving in Manhattan, Tom is a cook who has difficulty keeping a steady job. His wife, Sofia, is an attorney. When their first child is born, they agree that she will be a full-time mom and he will work hard to get a promotion. When Tom gets fired after defending his friend Paco, he takes a job in Ohio working at the ad agency where his father-in-law is the assistant director. Tom is assigned to report to Chip. Chip is a strict and hard-working paraplegic man who is coincidentally Sofia's ex-boyfriend from high school. Chip still carries an obsession with her, so he conspires to make Tom's work life miserable. As Tom's frustrations mount, Chip begins to sway Sofia to his side.\n\nTom begins to suspect that Chip isn't handicapped at all and goes through his desk. He finds a photo of Chip playing tennis and rushes to his in-laws' house to see his wife and show her the picture. He finds Chip having dinner with Sofia and her parents and holding Tom's child. Tom mercilessly tries to prove that Chip isn't actually paralyzed by dragging him up a flight of stairs and then throws him, expecting him to stand up to prevent falling. Chip doesn't stand up (the photo actually being Chip's late twin brother) and Tom is humiliated in front of his family. Later, he confronts Chip outside his house and attacks him, where Chip reveals that he really can walk, but can't fight outside of his chair. After sitting back down, Chip beats him severely and reveals that he plans to sleep with Sofia, much to Tom's already-increased rage.\n\nIt's revealed that Paco had called Chip under the guise of being an ad agency boss in Barcelona, telling Chip that he got a job and convincing him to fly to Spain. Excited by the news, Chip goes to Sofia and asks her to come with him. However, Tom accosts them both and convinces her not to go with Chip. Chip, angry that Sofia chose Tom over him, heartlessly mocks Tom and reveals he \"faked his orgasm\" to Sofia before getting out of his chair and walking out. While chastising them from outside, Chip is hit by a bus and ends up paralyzed from the waist down, crippling him for real. Tom and Sofia have moved out of Ohio and Sofia's dad is helping Tom start his own ad business. Tom and Sofia are shown to have switched positions, Tom becoming a stay-at-home dad while Sofia becomes a full-time worker. During the credits Chip is shown being tossed out of the ad company in Spain, and later on Tom's friend sees Chip in the middle of the running of the bulls on TV.\n\nCast\n Zach Braff as Tom Reilly\n Amanda Peet as Sofia Kowalski-Reilly\n Jason Bateman as Chip Sanders\n Charles Grodin as Bob Kowalski\n Mia Farrow as Amelia Kowalski\n Lucian Maisel as Wesley\n Amy Poehler as Carol Lane\n Paul Rudd as Leon\n Fred Armisen as Manny\n Donal Logue as Don Wollebin\n Amy Adams as Abby March\n Josh Charles as Forrest Mead\n Marin Hinkle as Karen\n Romany Malco as Hakeem Oliver\n Yul Vazquez as Paco\n\nCritical response\nOn Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 18% approval rating based on 99 reviews with an average rating of 4.34/10. The site's consensus states: \"The Ex suffers from inept direction and characters that are either unsympathetic or plain unpleasant to watch.\" By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 32, based on 24 reviews.\n\nSeveral film critics said the film felt truncated. Lou Lumenick of the New York Post said the film \"seems arbitrarily edited to squeeze in extra screenings before it's killed by word-of-mouth.\" Film critics also felt that the majority of the cast's talents were wasted. Many film critics also compared the film to a sitcom. Pam Grady of Reel.com said the film \"never rises above the level of a TV show grotesquely inflated for the big screen.\"\n\nJesse Peretz was criticized for his direction by many critics. Phoebe Flowers of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said the film was \"directed with a breathtaking lack of instinct by Jesse Peretz.\" A few critics described the film as half-baked. Sean Means of The Salt Lake Tribune said \"It's like undercooked lasagna: lots of layers, but the flavors never blend.\" Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic said the film was Zach Braff's most average movie so far. Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that after The Last Kiss and Garden State, \"Braff's shtick...is getting tired.\" Desson Thomson of The Washington Post said the film \"marks an all-time low for actor Zach Braff -- his Gigli, if you will..\"\n\nThe screenwriters, David Guion and Michael Handelman, virtually disowned the finished film. Handelman said, \"I think what we wrote was meant to be a bit less broad than the film that came out. I think a lot of what you see in either of those films is stuff that was not written by us even though we’re the only credited writers on that.\" Guion added, \"That movie was a bit of a cautionary story for screenwriters in terms of that it was a movie that struggled a little bit and didn’t test well initially, and the financers panicked and said, 'We better show a lot of people getting hit in the balls'... It was unfortunate because the director, Jesse Peretz, is great and very talented, but the movie was ultimately taken out of his hands.\"\n\nZach Braff and Jason Bateman were praised for their performances by several critics. Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel said \"Braff and Bateman make this patchwork just funny enough to be worth our trouble.\" Jason Bateman was praised by several film critics as being the best part of the movie. David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews said \"there's little doubt that Bateman deserves the lion's share of praise thanks to his scene-stealing work as Tom's hilariously smug nemesis.\"\n\nBox office performance\nThe film opened at #12 at the U.S. box office, earning $1.4 million in 1,009 theaters in its opening weekend. The film went on to gross $3,093,394 in its nine-week theatrical run in the United States. In other territories, the film grossed $2,085,246 making its total worldwide gross $5,178,640.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n \n \n\n2006 films\n2006 comedy films\nAmerican films\nAmerican comedy films\nFilms produced by Anne Carey\nFilms scored by Edward Shearmur\nFilms directed by Jesse Peretz\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer films\nThe Weinstein Company films"
] |
[
"Kobe Bryant",
"National team career",
"When did Kobe Bryant first play for the national team?",
"Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007.",
"How did he do on the team?",
"Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics.",
"How did the US do in the 2008 Olympics?",
"Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so.",
"What colleges did Bryant consider playing for?",
"Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list;",
"What did people say about his decision to go pro?",
"Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years).",
"How did he perform in his rookie year?",
"He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run,",
"Did he win any awards for his rookie year?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans.",
"What have his critics said about him?",
"I don't know."
] | C_12b68d54f65647ea91696fb2650332c3_1 | What have his teammates said about him? | 11 | What have Kobe Bryant's teammates said about him? | Kobe Bryant | Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, which was located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. He became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4-20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77-13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list; however, when Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, he began considering going directly to the pros. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31-3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. The awards included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom, though the two were, and remain, just friends. Ultimately, however, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. In the 2002-03 season, Bryant set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive 1st teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50-32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs. In the following 2003-04 season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone, and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA Championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later in same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another 3-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105-104. With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists. He shot 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined an offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed a seven-year contract with the Lakers. Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to publicly named to the 2006-2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and didn't participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10-0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament. On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118-107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests. Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He retired from the team after winning another gold medal. CANNOTANSWER | Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. | Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single game in league history, behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).
Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California in January 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor. In 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the greatest players in league history, being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Early life
Bryant was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He was also the maternal nephew of NBA player John "Chubby" Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean." Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball when he was three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Bryant began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. Bryant's grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which he learned more about basketball. He also learned to play soccer and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When Bryant was 13, he and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
High school
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. In his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to his senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant's news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college he chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
Professional career
1996 NBA draft
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016)
Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999)
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, he averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, Bryant participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired 3 three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. Bryant would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. He was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, Bryant signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept him with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing his skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. The playoff results, however, were no better, as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Three-peat (1999–2002)
Bryant's fortunes would improve when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, 7-assist, 4-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an OT victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. The Lakers, however, only won 56 games, an 11-game dropoff from the previous year. The Lakers would respond by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists in a 119–113 series-clinching win. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. In addition, he was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 win over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. He claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out". While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002 victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While the Lakers swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals, against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, Bryant became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player".
Coming up short (2002–2004)
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, Bryant recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists in a 108–93 win over the LA Clippers. He also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. Bryant averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. In addition, he averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. Bryant was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semi-finals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
In the following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused Bryant to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007)
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable". Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without Tomjanovich, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in Bryant's overall status in the NBA, as he did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, the two men worked together well the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments posted resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, Bryant outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory against the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 win, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. In that same month, Bryant also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, however, they lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, 6 assists, and 6 steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28 while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. On March 7, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, he elbowed Kyle Korver in the face which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers 7-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. In the following day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of ten 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, his jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
Back on top (2007–2010)
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 8 assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, he stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, and Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. He would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers concluded the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the San Antonio Spurs. The Lakers defeated the Spurs in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals, against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. He became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists for a title-winning team in the Finals.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged 3-pointer against the Miami Heat on December 4, 2009. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made". A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, he made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. He continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, he surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and as a result, missed nine games. The Lakers began the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6 for 24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013)
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30 against the Celtics, he became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. On February 1, 2011, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 win over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to 6th place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful". Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. He later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, Bryant scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league", said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career he scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. He sat out season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final playoff appearance.
The Lakers in 2012–13 acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as one of five players to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. His streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; Bryant was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender when he had a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when he played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. He missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, Bryant became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in an NBA game. On April 12, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. His injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. Bryant had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated he would miss six to nine months. He ended the season with his customary numbers scoring an average of 27.3 points, 46.3 percent shooting, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." Eight times he reached 40 points during the season, and eleven times he had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor, dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
Injury-plagued years (2013–2015)
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–2014 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. He remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; he had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. Bryant's contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games. On December 17, Bryant matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but he suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. He had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, he missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the remainder of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory against the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds. At age 36, he became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, Bryant became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 win against Minnesota. He played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons and Scott planned to reduce his workload going forward. Three times Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game, and the coach blamed himself for overloading him after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, he had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 win over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, he returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in 8 of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. He was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
Final season (2015–2016)
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. On December 1, 2015, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, where the Lakers lost 103–91.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote, "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, he was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. His free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, he acknowledged his declining skills. "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that", he said.
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, he had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. Still, he was honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but he declined.
In the season finale on April 13, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points against Utah in his last NBA game, outscoring the entire Jazz team 23–21 in the fourth quarter, in the Lakers' 101–96 victory. He became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history.
National team career
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. He also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Bryant was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003 but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. In the following summer, he had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, he was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. He started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. Bryant averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, he was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, Bryant decided to retire from the team. He finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
Player profile
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at and , He was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. Bryant has drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, he became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. His ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality". Throughout his first 16 seasons, his body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, he became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted that the biggest difference between his first and second stints in coaching the Lakers was if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
Basketball legacy
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that he had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked him the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. Players including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history". He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers he wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. He was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. Bryant led the NBA in scoring during the and seasons. His 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. He scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which he accomplished four times. Bryant was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team". He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19. He was chosen a record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016) he was the leading vote-getter. Four times Bryant was named the All-Star MVP, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. He was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and nine times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. He also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and 21 times he recorded a triple-double.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In Game 2 win against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 win in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the 2nd anniversary of his death and the helicopter crash, a statue of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the site where the crash occurred. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the Kobe Bryant trophy, as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league’s 75th anniversary season. All trophes were designed in partnership with artist Victor Solomon. The Kobe Bryant trophy features many stars that pay tribute to Bryant's career and legacy. The newly-redesigned trophies took effect starting with the 2022 All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 71 || 6 || 15.5 || .417 || .375 || .819 || 1.9 || 1.3 || .7 || .3 || 7.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 79 || 1 || 26.0 || .428 || .341 || .794 || 3.1 || 2.5 || .9 || .5 || 15.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || style="background:#cfecec;"|50* || 37.9 || .465 || .267 || .839 || 5.3 || 3.8 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 19.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 62 || 38.2 || .468 || .319 || .821 || 6.3 || 4.9 || 1.6 || .9 || 22.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 68 || 68 || 40.9 || .464 || .305 || .853 || 5.9 || 5.0 || 1.7 || .6 || 28.5
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 38.3 || .469 || .250 || .829 || 5.5 || 5.5 || 1.5 || .4 || 25.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 41.5 || .451 || .383 || .843 || 6.9 || 5.9 || 2.2 || .8 || 30.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 65 || 64 || 37.6 || .438 || .327 || .852 || 5.5 || 5.1 || 1.7 || .4 || 24.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 40.7 || .433 || .339 || .816 || 5.9 || 6.0 || 1.3 || .8 || 27.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 80 || 80 || 41.0 || .450 || .347 || .850 || 5.3 || 4.5 || 1.8 || .4 || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.4*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 77 || 77 || 40.8 || .463 || .344 || .868 || 5.7 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .5 || style="background:#cfecec;"|31.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 38.9 || .459 || .361 || .840 || 6.3 || 5.4 || 1.8 || .5 || 28.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 36.1 || .467 || .351 || .856 || 5.2 || 4.9 || 1.5 || .5 || 26.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 73 || 73 || 38.8 || .456 || .329 || .811 || 5.4 || 5.0 || 1.5 || .3 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 82 || style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || 33.9 || .451 || .323 || .828 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.2 || .1 || 25.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 58 || 58 || 38.5 || .430 || .303 || .845 || 5.4 || 4.6 || 1.2 || .3 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 78 || 78 || 38.6 || .463 || .324 || .839 || 5.6 || 6.0 || 1.4 || .3 || 27.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 6 || 6 || 29.5 || .425 || .188 || .857 || 4.3 || 6.3 || 1.2 || .2 || 13.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 35 || 35 || 34.5 || .373 || .293 || .813 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.3 || .2 || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 66 || 66 || 28.2 || .358 || .285 || .826 || 3.7 || 2.8 || .9 || .2 || 17.6
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 1,346 || 1,198 || 36.1 || .447 || .329 || .837 || 5.2 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .5 || 25.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|All-Star
| 15 || 15 || 27.6 || .500 || .324 || .789 || 5.0 || 4.7 || 2.5 || .4 || 19.3
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 9 || 0 || 14.8 || .382 || .261 || .867 || 1.2 || 1.2 || .3 || .2 || 8.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1998
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 11 || 0 || 20.0 || .408 || .214 || .689 || 1.9 || 1.5 || .3 || .7 || 8.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1999
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 8 || 8 || 39.4 || .430 || .348 || .800 || 6.9 || 4.6 || 1.9 || 1.3 || 19.8
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2000†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 39.0 || .442 || .344 || .754 || 4.5 || 4.4 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 21.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2001†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 16 || 16 || 43.4 || .469 || .324 || .821 || 7.3 || 6.1 || 1.6 || .8 || 29.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2002†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 19 || 19 || 43.8 || .434 || .379 || .759 || 5.8 || 4.6 || 1.4 || .9 || 26.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 44.3 || .432 || .403 || .827 || 5.1 || 5.2 || 1.2 || .1 || 32.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 22 || 22 || 44.2 || .413 || .247 || .813 || 4.7 || 5.5 || 1.9 || .3 || 24.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 7 || 7 || 44.9 || .497 || .400 || .771 || 6.3 || 5.1 || 1.1 || .4 || 27.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2007
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 5 || 5 || 43.0 || .462 || .357 || .919 || 5.2 || 4.4 || 1.0 || .4 || 32.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2008
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 21 || 21 || 41.1 || .479 || .302 || .809 || 5.7 || 5.6 || 1.7 || .4 || 30.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2009†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.8 || .457 || .349 || .883 || 5.3 || 5.5 || 1.7 || .9 || 30.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2010†
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 23 || 23 || 40.1 || .458 || .374 || .842 || 6.0 || 5.5 || 1.3 || .7 || 29.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2011
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 10 || 10 || 35.4 || .446 || .293 || .820 || 3.4 || 3.3 || 1.6 || .3 || 22.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2012
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 12 || 12 || 39.7 || .439 || .283 || .832 || 4.8 || 4.3 || 1.3 || .2 || 30.0
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 220 || 200 || 39.3 || .448 || .331 || .816 || 5.1 || 4.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 25.6
Off the court
Personal life
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had a close relationship with them until his death.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up". Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. The two began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one".
They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant's parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. The birth resulted in a reconciliation between Bryant and his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. Their daughter was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother had put up for auction. Bryant's mother received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
He is also a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
Sexual assault case
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation.
The accusation tarnished Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas that was worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated his contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed him to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. However, they refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year but eventually did start promoting Bryant once his image recovered two years later. He has since resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. Bryant was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered to be fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010 Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the "Black Mamba collection", a line of sports/luxury watches that range from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, Bryant was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. However, it was not for anything basketball related; rather, it was about Bryant being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, Bryant was ranked third behind Tiger Woods and Jordan in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved Bryant being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA '09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Music
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me". Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the song was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, Bryant appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant". Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a song paying tribute to Kobe Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition.
Film and television
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. He met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game, and then a couple of months later in May 1996, Brandy was Bryant's date to his high school senior prom. That same year, he guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, he appeared on an episode of Hang Time, this was followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). Bryant was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but he turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former professional athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his film Dear Basketball. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, he had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyses of games and individual players. He also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
Filmography
Philanthropy
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Together with his wife, Bryant founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless". Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife Vanessa were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform he that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year he was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over two hundred requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business ventures
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
Books
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, he was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
Death
Accident
At 9:06a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from , flying at .
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
Investigations
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
Tributes and funeral services
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again" – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
See also
Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes
List of National Basketball Association career playoff scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders
List of National Basketball Association single-game scoring leaders
List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Olympic medalists in basketball
List of people from Philadelphia
List of second-generation National Basketball Association players
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1978 births
2020 deaths
Accidental deaths in California
African-American basketball players
African-American Catholics
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men podcasters
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
American podcasters
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Los Angeles
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Catholics from California
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Charlotte Hornets draft picks
Deaths from fire in the United States
Los Angeles Lakers players
Lower Merion High School alumni
McDonald's High School All-Americans
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association high school draftees
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Pennsylvania
Producers who won the Best Animated Short Academy Award
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
United States men's national basketball team players
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2020
Victims of helicopter accidents or incidents in the United States | true | [
"The saying of Jesus concerning his true relatives is found in the Canonical gospels of Mark and Matthew.\n\nIn the Bible\nFrom :\n There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing\n without, sent unto him, calling him. \nAnd the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him,\n Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. \nAnd he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my\n brethren? \nAnd he looked round about on them which sat about him, and\n said, Behold my mother and my brethren! \nFor whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my\n brother, and my sister, and mother. \n\nFrom :\n While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and\n his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. \nThen one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren\n stand without, desiring to speak with thee. \nBut he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my\n mother? and who are my brethren? \nAnd he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and\n said, Behold my mother and my brethren! \nFor whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in\n heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.\n\nApocryphal version\nA re-organized version also appears in the Gospel of Thomas (Patterson-Meyer Translation):\n 99 The disciples said to him, \"Your brothers and your mother are\n standing outside.\" He said to them, \"Those here who do what my\n Father wants are my brothers and my mother. They are the ones who\n will enter my Father's kingdom.\" \n 100 They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, \"The Roman\n emperor's people demand taxes from us.\" He said to them, \"Give the\n emperor what belongs to the emperor, give God what belongs to God,\n and give me what is mine.\" \n 101 \"Whoever does not hate [father] and mother as I do cannot be\n my [disciple], and whoever does [not] love [father and] mother as\n I do cannot be my [disciple]. For my mother [...], but my true\n [mother] gave me life.\" \n\nVerse 100 (Caesar's Coin) is similar to Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20.22-26. Verse 101 (Love Jesus/God more than your family) is similar to and .\n\nSayings of Jesus\nGospel episodes",
"The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen is a young adult novel by Canadian author Susin Nielsen, first published in 2012. It deals with the effects of a school shooting on the shooter's family.\n\nInspiration\n\n\"I was reading a book by Wally Lamb called PenguinZ0. One of his characters was present at a horrific school Homicide . There was a line in the book that mentioned that one of the shooters had an older brother. That just punched me in the gut; I realized I had never thought about what it would be like for the surviving sibling of someone who committed a horrific crime. From there, Jesse and Henry were born. Jesse, relentlessly bullied to the point of murder/suicide; Henry, the brother left behind\".\n\nPlot summary\nAfter his older brother takes his dad's gun to school to kill himself and his bully, Henry K. Larsen is thrown into a brand new town and a brand new school to escape the anger of his old friends and neighbors. In this new town, Henry fights to keep knowledge of the \"IT\" from tainting his new friends' views of him the way it did back home. Henry begins to understand what it means to grieve for a loved one who has committed suicide, even though your anger. Through his own experience at school, Henry starts to realize the desperate position his brother was in and the impact that bullying had not only on his brother but on his new friends now. Henry never sugarcoats how he feels and explores the emotions he knows he should not have.\n\nCharacters\n\nJesse Larsen: Henry's older brother. He killed himself and his bully, Scott Marlin, with his dad's rifle gun after being intensely bullied by Scott and his friends.\nScott Marlin: Jesse Larsen's bully and Jodie Marlin's older brother.\nFarley Wong: Henry's best friend after he and his dad move, and one of Henry's Reach for the Top teammates.\nAlberta: Henry's friend and love interest. She is also one of Henry's Reach for the Top teammates.\nHenry's Mom (Francine Larsen): During the events of the book, she is in Ontario staying with her parents, and dealing with her own problems in the aftermath of \"IT\".\nHenry's Dad (Pete Larsen): He cares for Henry after the move while his wife (Francine) is in Ontario.\nMr. Atapattu: Resident in Henry's apartment complex. Next door neighbor and somewhat friend to Henry.\nKaren Vargas: Resident in Henry's apartment complex. She seems interested in Henry's dad, but soon becomes a help to Henry as he sorts out his feelings.\nCecil Levine: Henry's psychiatrist who Henry dislikes. Cecil gives Henry the diary in the first place. This is so Henry can write about his feelings.\nTroy Vasic: Bullies Farley and Henry at the new school, and later in the book, steals upwards of $200 from Farley.\nJodie Marlin: Scott Marlin's sister and Henry's best friend growing up before \"IT\" happened. Henry was unable to contact Jodie after \"IT\", because her father forbid it.\nParvana: One of Henry's Reach for the To teammates\nShen: One of Henry's Reach for the Top teammates\nAmbrose: One of Henry's Reach for the Top teammates, Ambrose was also the main character in the book \"Word Nerd\", also written by Susin Nielsen.\nJerome: One of Henry's Reach for the Top teammates\nKoula: One of Henry's Reach for the Top teammates\n\nAwards\n\nNominations\n\nSnow Willow Award \nTD Canadian Children's Literature Award (Finalist) \n\nAwards\n\nCanadian Council for the Arts Governor General's Literature Awards\nCanadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award 2013\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Review by Giselle at Book Nerd Canada\n CBC Books – TD Nominated Books\n Interview with Susan Nielsen\n AMSO Review\n \n\n2012 Canadian novels\nCanadian young adult novels\nNovels about bullying\nFictional diaries\nGovernor General's Award-winning novels"
] |
[
"Al Costello",
"Fabulous Kangaroos"
] | C_21de02ad9fca45fba7f83206cf4c6cab_1 | Who did Costello team with? | 1 | Who did Al Costello team with? | Al Costello | For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion. After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Perez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later. Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California. The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer. CANNOTANSWER | a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. | Giacomo Costa (14 December 1919 – 22 January 2000) was an Italian Australian professional wrestler best known by his ring name, Al Costello. Costello was the first professional wrestler to be nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Holds" because of his innovative and very technical style.
Costello was the creator and original member of the tag team The Fabulous Kangaroos, whose "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with boomerangs, bush hats and the song "Waltzing Matilda" as their entrance music, existed in various forms from 1957 until 1983. Costello was either an active wrestler, or a manager in all versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos. He and Roy Heffernan are arguably the most famous version of The Kangaroos, regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling, and are often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Costello later formed other versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos with Ray St. Clair, Don Kent and Tony Charles. He also managed the team of Don Kent & Bruno Bekkar and later on "Johnny Heffernan" under The Fabulous Kangaroos name.
Costello officially retired from wrestling in 1983 but still made a few brief returns to the ring after that. In 1993, he managed The New Fabulous Kangaroos (Denny Kass and Al Snow) before retiring completely from the wrestling business. Both Costello and his tag team partner Heffernan died before Kangaroos were honored as the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003, which started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.
Early life
Costa was born in the village of Lingua, in the Italian island of Santa Marina Salina, Sicily, and lived there until his family immigrated to Australia when he was six years old. The family settled in Rockdale, New South Wales, where Costa helped out in his father's fruit store. He excelled at school sports, and became interested in weightlifting at an early age. At age 16, Costa took up amateur boxing despite his father's wishes that he should become an opera singer. Costa was approached by Australian middleweight wrestling champion "Basher Bonas", who convinced him to try wrestling. Costa made his debut under an assumed name; his father still had hopes of him becoming an opera singer, and he did not want his parents to find out that he was wrestling. He came up with the name "Al Costello", thinking it sounded tough like a portmanteau of Al Capone and Frank Costello.
Wrestling career
Al Costello made his professional wrestling debut in 1938, but the man that would be known as "The Man of a Thousand Holds" 20 years later, found little success early in his career. The general belief in Australian professional wrestling at the time was that a wrestler had to go to North America and learn how to be a pro before the bookers would even consider pushing them up the card. Costello travelled across Asia, where he did see some success; he won the Malaysian Heavyweight title in 1939, as well as the South Africa trophy in 1949. During the 1950s, Costello finally started to turn heads at home by winning the Australasian title. In 1952, Costello began wrestling in America, hoping to finally break through and make a big name of himself.
Fabulous Kangaroos
For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion.
After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later.
Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California.
The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer.
Between Kangaroos
Heffernan returned to Australia and began working for World Championship Wrestling (the Australian version, not the North American wrestling federation) under booker Jim Barnett as a singles wrestler. Costello was originally supposed to return to Australia as well and work for WCW, but those plans never came through. Instead, Costello remained in the United States and kept working in the tag team division, never seeking a career as a singles wrestler. Costello began wrestling for Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he teamed up with Louis Tillet to form a tag team known as "The Globetrotters"; a name that played off Costello's Australian and Tillet's French heritage. The Globetrotters defeated the Mysterious Medics in the finals of the Georgia NWA World Tag Team Championship but only held the titles for a week before losing them to Kurt and Karl Von Brauner on 4 February 1966. After this, the Globetrotters broke up due to differences in their approach to tag teaming.
Costello then moved to the NWA Mid-America territory near Nashville, Tennessee. In Mid-American, Costello teamed with Herb Welch to win the Mid-American version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, which they held for just over 2 months. While still working in Mid-America, Costello began to team with Karl Von Brauner, who used a "German Nazi" gimmick despite being American. Under the management of "Playboy" Gary Hart, Costello and Von Brauner were billed as "The Internationals"; the team was later managed by George "Crybaby" Cannon. The Internationals worked mainly in Tennessee and Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to Fritz and Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. Kurt then decided to go back to teaming with his storyline brother, Karl Von Brauner.
After the Internationals broke up, Costello returned to Australia to visit friends and relatives and to recuperate after many years on the road. On his way back to the United States, Costello had a stop over in Detroit, Michigan, where he met Cleo Williams. The two fell in love and married shortly afterwards, remaining together for the rest of Costello's life.
Kangaroos once more
In 1967, Al Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos, this time teaming up with Ray St. Clair. The team had been touring non-stop for about six months when St. Clair was forced to retire due to knee problems. A few months after St. Clair retired, Costello found a new man to don the bush hat: Don Kent. Kent, who was from Michigan, adopted the Ultra-Australian gimmick (but retained his American accent) and the two formed the third overall and second most well-known version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. Costello and Kent teamed together on a regular basis from 1968 until 1974, approximately the same amount of time that Costello spent teaming with his original partner, Roy Heffernan. Costello and Kent continued in a tradition that was reminiscent of the original Kangaroos; when a federation needed a new tag team title, The Kangaroos were brought in and acknowledged as champions upon arrival instead of holding a tournament to determine the champions. In 1967, the Japanese federation "International Wrestling Enterprise" (IWE) brought The Kangaroos in as the first Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Champions. They held this title until 10 January 1968 when IWE mainstays Toyonobori and Thunder Sugiyama beat them for the gold. Over the years, many more title reigns came from various promotions all over the globe. In Canada, The Kangaroos were the first Eastern Sports Association International Tag Team Champions. In the World Wrestling Association of Indianapolis, they held the WWA World Tag Team Championship twice. In addition to winning titles all over North America, Costello and Kent also made appearances for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE).
The Kangaroos frequented NWA Detroit, where they held the Detroit version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship for most of 1971. By the end of 1972, The Kangaroos began working for Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America. In Mid-America, they held the local version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the Mid-America version, on three occasions.
After a match at Cincinnati Gardens, an enraged fan took a fire extinguisher off the wall and threw it at Costello and Kent from the balcony of the Gardens. The extinguisher hit Costello in the hip, damaging it so much that he needed hip replacement surgery later that year. The fan was arrested, served 15 days in jail, and fined fifty dollars for damaging the fire extinguisher. The hip injury left Costello unable to wrestle, and The Fabulous Kangaroos split up once again. Costello had a full hip replacement and was forced to retire from active competition.
Managing
In 1975, Costello surprised everyone by returning to professional wrestling as the manager of the team known as "The Love Brothers" (Hartford and Reggie Love). He actually stepped into the ring on occasion as part of special six-man tag team matches.
After recovering from his hip surgery, Costello returned to active competition at age 56. The fact that he was able to recover from such a major injury is credited to his almost-fanatical style of healthy living. As a devout vegan, Costello credited his meat-free diet with his recovery, as well as the remarkable shape he was in for a man of his age.
Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos once more, this time teaming up with wrestler Tony Charles. The team defeated Dominic DeNucci and Chris Markoff to win Detroit's version of the NWA World Tag Team title, the same title that Costello and Kent had previously held. The Kangaroos title run was short, however, and they lost their gold to "Crazy" Luke Graham and Ripper Collins.
In 1977, Tony Charles was replaced by Don Kent and the two reunited for a tour of Puerto Rico with the World Wrestling Council (WWC). In Puerto Rico, The Kangaroos arrived billed as the WWC World Tag Team Champions, once more to give a newly created title legitimacy. They dropped the titles to Carlos Colón and Jose Rivera on 12 March 1977 and remained in the WWC until 1978 chasing, but never regaining, the WWC World Tag Team Championship. After their tour in Puerto Rico ended, Don Kent returned to singles wrestling, and Costello refocused on managing.
Still a Kangaroo
In 1981, Costello convinced Kent to once again don the bush hat and pick up the boomerang. Costello got Kent to team up with Bruno Bekkar, who was mostly known from working in his native New Zealand and Australia. Kent and Bekkar worked a tour for the WWC, while Costello served as their manager. The team won the WWC North American Tag Team titles from Jack and Jerry Brisco on 22 October 1981. They then lost the titles to Invader I and Super Gladiator but quickly gained them back before dropping the titles for good to Invader and Gladiator on 26 January 1982. The Kent and Bekkar team only lasted through one tour of the Caribbean, after which Bruno Bekkar returned to Australia and New Zealand to work for the local promotions there.
Bekkar was replaced with Johnny Heffernan (Canadian wrestler Bob Della Serra), a storyline cousin of Roy Heffernan, for what was the final version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. The team ended Terry and Dory Funk Jr.'s year and a half run with the WWC World Tag Team championship on 1 May 1982. Kent and Heffernan held the gold for less than two months before losing the WWC World Tag Team titles to Invader I and Pierre Martel. After a tour in Puerto Rico, Costello, Kent and Heffernan returned to work for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF), a promotion The Kangaroos last worked for in 1962. In Florida, The Kangaroos won the NWA Florida Global Tag Team Championship four times. The final storyline involving The Fabulous Kangaroos saw Al Costello bring in J.J. Dillon to act as his short term replacement while he was "away on business". When Costello returned from his business trip, Dillon kayfabe refused to give up The Kangaroos' contracts and was backed up by both Kent and Heffernan. This angle was designed to write Al Costello out of The Fabulous Kangaroos' storyline and allow him to retire from wrestling altogether. Not long after Costello retired, Kent and Johnny Heffernan went their separate ways.
Retirement
After retiring from wrestling, Al Costello became the head of security at College Harbor, Florida. In 1992, at the age of 71, Costello retired from his job in Florida and began teaching wrestling. He also started to manage The New Fabulous Kangaroos in 1993, a team consisting of Mickey Doyle and Denny Kass who worked for "Motor City Wrestling" (MCW). By the fall of 1993, Mickey Doyle had been replaced by a young wrestler by the name of Al Snow; with Costello's help The New Fabulous Kangaroos defeated "Canadian Lighting" (Otis Apollo and "Irish" Bobby Clancy), on 29 December 1993, to win the MCW Tag Team Championship. On 14 May 1994, Kass and Snow defeated Canadian Lighting again to win the Border City Wrestling (BCW) Can-Am Tag Team Championship, unifying the two tag team championships. A week later, The New Fabulous Kangaroos lost both sets of titles to Scott D'Amore and "Irish" Bobby Clancy. After losing the unified MCW/BCW Tag Team championships, The New Kangaroos split up; Snow focused on his World Wrestling Federation career while Costello retired for good, never making another wrestling related appearance.
Death
On 22 January 2000, Costello died from a combination of pneumonia and heart problems, in Clearwater, Florida. In 2003, Al Costello and Roy Heffernan became the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but The Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first. In the tradition of the Kangaroos, they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time.
Championships and accomplishments
Alex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)
International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Capitol Wrestling Corporation
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northeast version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Cauliflower Alley Club
Other honoree (1994)
Championship Wrestling from Florida
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version)(1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Eastern Sports Association
ESA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Georgia Championship Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Georgia version) 1 time – with Louie Tillet
International Wrestling Enterprise
Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Japan Wrestling Association
NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Midwest Wrestling Association
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Ohio version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Mike London Promotions
Rocky Mountain Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
National Wrestling Alliance
NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)
NWA All-Star Wrestling
NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship (Vancouver version) (4 times) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA Big Time Wrestling
NWA American Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Karl Von Brauner
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan (1), Karl Von Brauner (1)
NWA Detroit
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Detroit version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan (2), Ray St. Clair (1)
NWA Mid-America
NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version) 4 times) - with Don Kent (3), Herb Welch (1)
New Zealand Wrestling Union
NWA Australasian Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2003 - with Roy Heffernan
Western States Sports
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Roy HeffernanA
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Amarillo version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Association
WWA World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Don Kent
Worldwide Wrestling Associates
WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
WWA International Television Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Council
WWC World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996) with Roy Heffernan
References
External links
New Fabulous Kangaroos Tribute page
Roy Heffernan Interview
1919 births
2000 deaths
Australian male professional wrestlers
Italian emigrants to Australia
Italian male professional wrestlers
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Sportspeople from the Province of Messina
Stampede Wrestling alumni
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida | true | [
"Laurence Roy Heffernan (12 July 1925 – 24 September 1992) was an Australian professional wrestler. Roy Heffernan toured all over the world, but is most famous for being one half of the original version of the tag team the Fabulous Kangaroos (with Al Costello). The Kangaroos used an \"Ultra Australian\" gimmick complete with Boomerangs, bush hats and \"Waltzing Matilda\" as their entrance music. The first incarnation of the Kangaroos is the most famous of all the Kangaroo versions and is often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s. Costello and Heffernan are also regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling.\n\nWhen the Kangaroos broke up, Heffernan left America to return to his home of Australia. In Australia, Heffernan was involved with Australia's version of World Championship Wrestling under booker Jim Barnett where he worked as a face (good guy), the polar opposite of his time spent as a Fabulous Kangaroo. Both Heffernan and Costello died before the team was honored by being the first tag team inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003. The induction of the Fabulous Kangaroos started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.\n\nBiography\n\nStarting out\nRoy Heffernan was a native Australian, born in Lithgow NSW, and was an avid weightlifter and bodybuilder in his teens. He was trained by his father, who was also a bodybuilder, and won the Mr. Australia title before making his wrestling debut at the age of twenty. Heffernan did not have an easy time moving up the ranks in Australian pro-wrestling, as the belief at the time was that a wrestler really had to go overseas to North America and learn to be a pro before the bookers would even consider moving them up the rankings of the promotion. After working on the lower cards in Australia, Heffernan left his home country in 1953 and moved to America in the hopes of attaining more success there.\n\nFabulous Kangaroos\n\nFor years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team and even had an idea of who his partner should be in this new tag team: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago (Heffernan). The problem was that Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, so the idea remained dormant until Costello went on a tour of Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an \"Ultra Australian\" tag team to fellow wrestler and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard was good friends with Heffernan and knew that he was working in Stampede Wrestling at that point in time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and soon after, Costello was off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join up with Heffernan. Costello and Heffernan made their debut as the Fabulous Kangaroos on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after making their debut, the Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams of the promotion.\n\nAfter working in Stampede for a while, the Fabulous Kangaroos traveled across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile the crowd up with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958 the Kangaroos, or \"Kangaroo Men\" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez. The fans began to throw fruit and stones after the match ended without a decisive winner, and the promoters had to step in, turn up the lights in the arena and play the National Anthem to stop a potential riot from breaking out. Everywhere the team went, they seemed to win championships; be it the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship in Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion, or the forerunner to the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship, the North East version of the NWA United States Tag Team Championship.\n\nDuring their time together from 1957 until 1965, the Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles.\n\nThe Kangaroos never forgot the territory that started it all and worked in Canada off and on over the years. The team not only worked for Stampede Wrestling while in Canada, but also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Fabulous Kangaroos' 1965 run in NWA All-Star Wrestling turned out to be the last time the original Kangaroos teamed together. In June 1965, the Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States at least for a while longer.\n\nReturn to Australia\nRoy Heffernan returned to his native Australia, and became one of the main wrestlers for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) (the Australian version) under promoter Jim Barnett. Heffernan retained his \"Ultra Australian\" gimmick complete with Bush hat and boomerang, but what had made him a heel (bad guy) in the United States made him a beloved face (good guy) in Australia. Heffernan's Fan Club Yearbook circa 1966 gives the following physical statistics for Roy Heffernan: neck 17.5 inches; chest 48.5 inches; waist 32.5 inches; thigh 27 inches; biceps 17.5 inches; calf 17.5 inches. He was billed in 1967 as weighing 225 lb. Costello was originally supposed to join Heffernan in Australia but it never worked out that way, leaving Costello in the United States while Heffernan wrestled as a singles wrestler. Later in his career, Heffernan became involved in the actual running of WCW before retiring in the 1980s.\n\nDeath\nRoy Heffernan died on 24 September 1992 at St George Hospital in Sydney from a heart attack. In 2003, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame inducted Roy Heffernan, along with Al Costello, as the first ever tag team to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. From 2003 and forward, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but the Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first team to enter the Hall of Fame; in the tradition of the Kangaroos they were \"billed as champions on arrival\" one last time.\n\nChampionships and accomplishments\nAlex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)\nInternational Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Al Costello\nCapitol Wrestling Corporation\nNWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northwest version) (3 times) - with Al Costello\nChampionship Wrestling from Florida\nNWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Al Costello\nNWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Al Costello\nInternational Wrestling Enterprise\nTrans-World Wrestling Alliance Heavyweight Championship (1 time)\nJapan Wrestling Association\nNWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Al Costello\nMidwest Wrestling Association\nNWA United States Tag Team Championship (Ohio version)(1 time) - with Al Costello\nMike London Promotions\nRocky Mountain Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Al Costello\nNational Wrestling Alliance\nNWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)\nNWA All-Star Wrestling\nNWA Canadian Tag Team Championship (Vancouver version) (4 times) - with Al Costello\nNWA Detroit\nNWA World Tag Team Championship (Detroit version) (2 times) - with Al Costello\nNWA Western States Sports\nNWA International Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Al Costello1\nNWA Southwest Heavyweight Championship (1 time)\nNWA World Tag Team Championship (Amarillo version) (1 time) - with Al Costello\nNWA World Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Al Costello\nPacific Northwest Wrestling\nNWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Red Bastien\nWorldwide Wrestling Associates\nWWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Al Costello\nWWA International Television Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Al Costello\nProfessional Wrestling Hall of Fame\nClass of 2003 - with Al Costello\nWrestling Observer Newsletter\nWrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)\n1. Title also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling.\n\nReferences\n\n1925 births\n1992 deaths\nAustralian male professional wrestlers\nProfessional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum\nSportspeople from Sydney\nStampede Wrestling alumni",
"Brian Costello (born 1984) is an Irish hurler who currently plays as a full-back for the London senior hurling team. \n\nCostello has played inter-county hurling with Galway's minor, under-21, intermediate and senior teams, having captained the intermediate team in 2008 and was a member of the senior panel in 2009. Costello emigrated to London in 2011 where he linked up with the London senior hurling team. As an inter-county hurler he has won one under-21 all Ireland, one Christy Ring Cup winners' medal and one Nicky Rackard Cup winners' medal.\n\nIn 2012 Costello was named the Christy Ring Hurler of the Year in addition to being awarded a GPA All-Star for his contribution to the London Christy Ring winning team.\n\nAt club level Costello is a two-time county senior championship medalist with St. Gabriel's. He previously played with Abbeyknockmoy.\n\nReferences\n\n1984 births\nLiving people\nAbbeyknockmoy hurlers\nSt. Gabriel's hurlers\nGalway inter-county hurlers\nLondon inter-county hurlers"
] |
[
"Al Costello",
"Fabulous Kangaroos",
"Who did Costello team with?",
"a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan."
] | C_21de02ad9fca45fba7f83206cf4c6cab_1 | Who was Costello billed as? | 2 | Who was Al Costello billed as? | Al Costello | For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion. After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Perez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later. Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California. The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer. CANNOTANSWER | The Fabulous Kangaroos | Giacomo Costa (14 December 1919 – 22 January 2000) was an Italian Australian professional wrestler best known by his ring name, Al Costello. Costello was the first professional wrestler to be nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Holds" because of his innovative and very technical style.
Costello was the creator and original member of the tag team The Fabulous Kangaroos, whose "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with boomerangs, bush hats and the song "Waltzing Matilda" as their entrance music, existed in various forms from 1957 until 1983. Costello was either an active wrestler, or a manager in all versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos. He and Roy Heffernan are arguably the most famous version of The Kangaroos, regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling, and are often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Costello later formed other versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos with Ray St. Clair, Don Kent and Tony Charles. He also managed the team of Don Kent & Bruno Bekkar and later on "Johnny Heffernan" under The Fabulous Kangaroos name.
Costello officially retired from wrestling in 1983 but still made a few brief returns to the ring after that. In 1993, he managed The New Fabulous Kangaroos (Denny Kass and Al Snow) before retiring completely from the wrestling business. Both Costello and his tag team partner Heffernan died before Kangaroos were honored as the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003, which started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.
Early life
Costa was born in the village of Lingua, in the Italian island of Santa Marina Salina, Sicily, and lived there until his family immigrated to Australia when he was six years old. The family settled in Rockdale, New South Wales, where Costa helped out in his father's fruit store. He excelled at school sports, and became interested in weightlifting at an early age. At age 16, Costa took up amateur boxing despite his father's wishes that he should become an opera singer. Costa was approached by Australian middleweight wrestling champion "Basher Bonas", who convinced him to try wrestling. Costa made his debut under an assumed name; his father still had hopes of him becoming an opera singer, and he did not want his parents to find out that he was wrestling. He came up with the name "Al Costello", thinking it sounded tough like a portmanteau of Al Capone and Frank Costello.
Wrestling career
Al Costello made his professional wrestling debut in 1938, but the man that would be known as "The Man of a Thousand Holds" 20 years later, found little success early in his career. The general belief in Australian professional wrestling at the time was that a wrestler had to go to North America and learn how to be a pro before the bookers would even consider pushing them up the card. Costello travelled across Asia, where he did see some success; he won the Malaysian Heavyweight title in 1939, as well as the South Africa trophy in 1949. During the 1950s, Costello finally started to turn heads at home by winning the Australasian title. In 1952, Costello began wrestling in America, hoping to finally break through and make a big name of himself.
Fabulous Kangaroos
For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion.
After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later.
Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California.
The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer.
Between Kangaroos
Heffernan returned to Australia and began working for World Championship Wrestling (the Australian version, not the North American wrestling federation) under booker Jim Barnett as a singles wrestler. Costello was originally supposed to return to Australia as well and work for WCW, but those plans never came through. Instead, Costello remained in the United States and kept working in the tag team division, never seeking a career as a singles wrestler. Costello began wrestling for Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he teamed up with Louis Tillet to form a tag team known as "The Globetrotters"; a name that played off Costello's Australian and Tillet's French heritage. The Globetrotters defeated the Mysterious Medics in the finals of the Georgia NWA World Tag Team Championship but only held the titles for a week before losing them to Kurt and Karl Von Brauner on 4 February 1966. After this, the Globetrotters broke up due to differences in their approach to tag teaming.
Costello then moved to the NWA Mid-America territory near Nashville, Tennessee. In Mid-American, Costello teamed with Herb Welch to win the Mid-American version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, which they held for just over 2 months. While still working in Mid-America, Costello began to team with Karl Von Brauner, who used a "German Nazi" gimmick despite being American. Under the management of "Playboy" Gary Hart, Costello and Von Brauner were billed as "The Internationals"; the team was later managed by George "Crybaby" Cannon. The Internationals worked mainly in Tennessee and Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to Fritz and Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. Kurt then decided to go back to teaming with his storyline brother, Karl Von Brauner.
After the Internationals broke up, Costello returned to Australia to visit friends and relatives and to recuperate after many years on the road. On his way back to the United States, Costello had a stop over in Detroit, Michigan, where he met Cleo Williams. The two fell in love and married shortly afterwards, remaining together for the rest of Costello's life.
Kangaroos once more
In 1967, Al Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos, this time teaming up with Ray St. Clair. The team had been touring non-stop for about six months when St. Clair was forced to retire due to knee problems. A few months after St. Clair retired, Costello found a new man to don the bush hat: Don Kent. Kent, who was from Michigan, adopted the Ultra-Australian gimmick (but retained his American accent) and the two formed the third overall and second most well-known version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. Costello and Kent teamed together on a regular basis from 1968 until 1974, approximately the same amount of time that Costello spent teaming with his original partner, Roy Heffernan. Costello and Kent continued in a tradition that was reminiscent of the original Kangaroos; when a federation needed a new tag team title, The Kangaroos were brought in and acknowledged as champions upon arrival instead of holding a tournament to determine the champions. In 1967, the Japanese federation "International Wrestling Enterprise" (IWE) brought The Kangaroos in as the first Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Champions. They held this title until 10 January 1968 when IWE mainstays Toyonobori and Thunder Sugiyama beat them for the gold. Over the years, many more title reigns came from various promotions all over the globe. In Canada, The Kangaroos were the first Eastern Sports Association International Tag Team Champions. In the World Wrestling Association of Indianapolis, they held the WWA World Tag Team Championship twice. In addition to winning titles all over North America, Costello and Kent also made appearances for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE).
The Kangaroos frequented NWA Detroit, where they held the Detroit version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship for most of 1971. By the end of 1972, The Kangaroos began working for Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America. In Mid-America, they held the local version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the Mid-America version, on three occasions.
After a match at Cincinnati Gardens, an enraged fan took a fire extinguisher off the wall and threw it at Costello and Kent from the balcony of the Gardens. The extinguisher hit Costello in the hip, damaging it so much that he needed hip replacement surgery later that year. The fan was arrested, served 15 days in jail, and fined fifty dollars for damaging the fire extinguisher. The hip injury left Costello unable to wrestle, and The Fabulous Kangaroos split up once again. Costello had a full hip replacement and was forced to retire from active competition.
Managing
In 1975, Costello surprised everyone by returning to professional wrestling as the manager of the team known as "The Love Brothers" (Hartford and Reggie Love). He actually stepped into the ring on occasion as part of special six-man tag team matches.
After recovering from his hip surgery, Costello returned to active competition at age 56. The fact that he was able to recover from such a major injury is credited to his almost-fanatical style of healthy living. As a devout vegan, Costello credited his meat-free diet with his recovery, as well as the remarkable shape he was in for a man of his age.
Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos once more, this time teaming up with wrestler Tony Charles. The team defeated Dominic DeNucci and Chris Markoff to win Detroit's version of the NWA World Tag Team title, the same title that Costello and Kent had previously held. The Kangaroos title run was short, however, and they lost their gold to "Crazy" Luke Graham and Ripper Collins.
In 1977, Tony Charles was replaced by Don Kent and the two reunited for a tour of Puerto Rico with the World Wrestling Council (WWC). In Puerto Rico, The Kangaroos arrived billed as the WWC World Tag Team Champions, once more to give a newly created title legitimacy. They dropped the titles to Carlos Colón and Jose Rivera on 12 March 1977 and remained in the WWC until 1978 chasing, but never regaining, the WWC World Tag Team Championship. After their tour in Puerto Rico ended, Don Kent returned to singles wrestling, and Costello refocused on managing.
Still a Kangaroo
In 1981, Costello convinced Kent to once again don the bush hat and pick up the boomerang. Costello got Kent to team up with Bruno Bekkar, who was mostly known from working in his native New Zealand and Australia. Kent and Bekkar worked a tour for the WWC, while Costello served as their manager. The team won the WWC North American Tag Team titles from Jack and Jerry Brisco on 22 October 1981. They then lost the titles to Invader I and Super Gladiator but quickly gained them back before dropping the titles for good to Invader and Gladiator on 26 January 1982. The Kent and Bekkar team only lasted through one tour of the Caribbean, after which Bruno Bekkar returned to Australia and New Zealand to work for the local promotions there.
Bekkar was replaced with Johnny Heffernan (Canadian wrestler Bob Della Serra), a storyline cousin of Roy Heffernan, for what was the final version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. The team ended Terry and Dory Funk Jr.'s year and a half run with the WWC World Tag Team championship on 1 May 1982. Kent and Heffernan held the gold for less than two months before losing the WWC World Tag Team titles to Invader I and Pierre Martel. After a tour in Puerto Rico, Costello, Kent and Heffernan returned to work for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF), a promotion The Kangaroos last worked for in 1962. In Florida, The Kangaroos won the NWA Florida Global Tag Team Championship four times. The final storyline involving The Fabulous Kangaroos saw Al Costello bring in J.J. Dillon to act as his short term replacement while he was "away on business". When Costello returned from his business trip, Dillon kayfabe refused to give up The Kangaroos' contracts and was backed up by both Kent and Heffernan. This angle was designed to write Al Costello out of The Fabulous Kangaroos' storyline and allow him to retire from wrestling altogether. Not long after Costello retired, Kent and Johnny Heffernan went their separate ways.
Retirement
After retiring from wrestling, Al Costello became the head of security at College Harbor, Florida. In 1992, at the age of 71, Costello retired from his job in Florida and began teaching wrestling. He also started to manage The New Fabulous Kangaroos in 1993, a team consisting of Mickey Doyle and Denny Kass who worked for "Motor City Wrestling" (MCW). By the fall of 1993, Mickey Doyle had been replaced by a young wrestler by the name of Al Snow; with Costello's help The New Fabulous Kangaroos defeated "Canadian Lighting" (Otis Apollo and "Irish" Bobby Clancy), on 29 December 1993, to win the MCW Tag Team Championship. On 14 May 1994, Kass and Snow defeated Canadian Lighting again to win the Border City Wrestling (BCW) Can-Am Tag Team Championship, unifying the two tag team championships. A week later, The New Fabulous Kangaroos lost both sets of titles to Scott D'Amore and "Irish" Bobby Clancy. After losing the unified MCW/BCW Tag Team championships, The New Kangaroos split up; Snow focused on his World Wrestling Federation career while Costello retired for good, never making another wrestling related appearance.
Death
On 22 January 2000, Costello died from a combination of pneumonia and heart problems, in Clearwater, Florida. In 2003, Al Costello and Roy Heffernan became the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but The Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first. In the tradition of the Kangaroos, they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time.
Championships and accomplishments
Alex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)
International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Capitol Wrestling Corporation
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northeast version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Cauliflower Alley Club
Other honoree (1994)
Championship Wrestling from Florida
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version)(1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Eastern Sports Association
ESA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Georgia Championship Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Georgia version) 1 time – with Louie Tillet
International Wrestling Enterprise
Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Japan Wrestling Association
NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Midwest Wrestling Association
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Ohio version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Mike London Promotions
Rocky Mountain Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
National Wrestling Alliance
NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)
NWA All-Star Wrestling
NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship (Vancouver version) (4 times) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA Big Time Wrestling
NWA American Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Karl Von Brauner
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan (1), Karl Von Brauner (1)
NWA Detroit
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Detroit version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan (2), Ray St. Clair (1)
NWA Mid-America
NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version) 4 times) - with Don Kent (3), Herb Welch (1)
New Zealand Wrestling Union
NWA Australasian Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2003 - with Roy Heffernan
Western States Sports
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Roy HeffernanA
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Amarillo version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Association
WWA World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Don Kent
Worldwide Wrestling Associates
WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
WWA International Television Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Council
WWC World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996) with Roy Heffernan
References
External links
New Fabulous Kangaroos Tribute page
Roy Heffernan Interview
1919 births
2000 deaths
Australian male professional wrestlers
Italian emigrants to Australia
Italian male professional wrestlers
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Sportspeople from the Province of Messina
Stampede Wrestling alumni
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida | true | [
"The Attractions were an English backing band for the English new wave musician Elvis Costello between 1977 and 1986, and again from 1994 to 1996. They consisted of Steve Nieve (keyboards and ukulele), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar), and Pete Thomas (drums). They also released one album (and two associated singles) as an independent entity, without Costello, in 1980.\n\nHistory\nBacking for Costello's 1977 debut album was provided by the American West Coast band Clover. Later in 1977, Costello formed his own permanent backing band, the Attractions, consisting of Steve Nieve (born Steve Nason; keyboards and ukulele) from London, Bruce Thomas (bass guitar) from Stockton-on-Tees, and Pete Thomas (drums) from Sheffield. The two Thomases are unrelated.\n\nBruce Thomas was the oldest group member (29 when he joined), with the most professional experience prior to being an Attraction. He had previously been a member of the band Quiver, who had released two albums on their own in 1971/72, as well as functioning as the backing band for several albums by The Sutherland Brothers. These albums were credited to \"The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver\"; Thomas played on the early recordings credited to this group, including the minor American hit \"(I Don't Want to Love You But) You Got Me Anyway\", which peaked at No. 48 in 1973. He left the group before their biggest success, 1976's \"Arms of Mary\", a No. 5 UK hit and a No. 1 hit in many European countries. Thomas was also a member of Moonrider for their lone album in 1975, and recorded as a session musician for Al Stewart in the early to mid-1970.\n\nPete Thomas, who was born the same month as Costello, had recorded one album as a member of Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers.\n\nOnly Nason, who had classical training, had never recorded or played with a rock band before. Just 19 when he joined the group, Nason was given the stage name \"Steve Nieve\" (pronounced as \"naive\") from Ian Dury; while Elvis Costello & The Attractions were playing a series of concerts with Dury before they recorded their first single, Nason innocently asked Dury \"What's a groupie?\" Dury immediately dubbed Nason \"Steve Naive\", and the name stuck (although the spelling was altered.)\n\nElvis Costello and the Attractions played live gigs as early as the summer of 1977, and a few live tracks were appended to the B-side of the Costello solo single \"Watching The Detectives\", issued in October 1977. The full band made their studio recording debut with the March 1978 single \"(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea\". From there, the Attractions backed Costello on all of his albums and singles until 1984, with the exception of \"New Amsterdam\" (1980), a solo single recorded by Costello.\n\nIn 1980, The Attractions recorded an album of their own, entitled Mad About The Wrong Boy. The album featured original compositions by all three group members, and was produced by Roger Bechirian. Steve Nieve wrote the music for several songs under the pseudonym \"Norman Brain\"; for these songs, his then-girlfriend Fay Hart provided lyrics, leading to a writing credit of \"Brain/Hart\". The Brain/Hart composition \"Single Girl\" was released as the first single from the album, followed by the Nieve-composed \"Arms Race\" as the second single. Neither single charted.\n\nDue to their frequent use of pseudonyms and their associations with Bechirian, The Attractions were widely - but erroneously - rumoured to have been behind Blanket of Secrecy (BoS), a synthpop trio recognised at the time only by the pseudonyms 'Tinker', 'Tailor' and 'Soldier'. The group's lone album, Walls Have Ears, was produced by Bechirian and issued in 1982.\n\nGuitarist Martin Belmont was briefly added to Attractions live line-up in 1981, but never recorded as an official member of the band. He did, however, make a guest appearance on the 1981 Elvis Costello and The Attractions single \"From A Whisper to a Scream\", which was also included on the album, Trust.\n\nAlbums by Elvis Costello and The Attractions appeared regularly until 1984. On that year's Goodbye Cruel World and its associated tour, The Attractions' keyboardist was billed as \"Maurice Worm\"; yet another pseudonym for Nason/Nieve.\n\nIn early 1986, Costello released King of America, billed to The Costello Show and made largely without the Attractions. The Attractions played on only one track, as well as the non-LP B-side \"Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo\", billed to 'The Costello Show Featuring The Attractions'.\n\nLater that same year Costello reunited with The Attractions to record the album Blood & Chocolate, but this would prove to be the final Attractions release for several years. Growing antipathy between Costello and Bruce Thomas contributed to the Attractions' first split in 1986, and the rift was exacerbated by what Costello felt was his unflattering portrayal in Thomas' 1990 book The Big Wheel. Despite this, the original group reunited for several tracks on Costello's 1994 album Brutal Youth and toured together over the next two years. They recorded one further album as a group (1996's All This Useless Beauty) but split for good in 1996.\n\nNieve and Pete Thomas continued to back Costello through various touring and recording line-ups, and are still members of his current backing group The Imposters. The split between Costello and Bruce Thomas, however, appears permanent. Bruce Thomas made a brief appearance with his former bandmates when the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, but when Costello was asked why Thomas did not play with them at the event, he reportedly replied, \"I only work with professional musicians.\"\n\nDiscography\nFor Elvis Costello solo material, please see the Elvis Costello discography.\n\nThe Attractions / Costello albums \n This Year's Model (1978)\n Armed Forces (1979)\n Get Happy!! (1980)\n Trust (1981)\n Almost Blue (1981)\n Imperial Bedroom (1982)\n Punch the Clock (1983)\n Goodbye Cruel World (1984)\n Blood & Chocolate (1986)\n Brutal Youth (1994)\n Bruce Thomas only appears on half the album, with Nick Lowe on bass for most of the other tracks\n All This Useless Beauty (1996)\n\nThe Attractions non-Costello albums \nMad About the Wrong Boy (F-Beat Records, 1980)\n\nThe Attractions minimal appearance on \n King of America (1986)\n\nThe Attractions non-Costello singles \n\"Single Girl\" b/w \"Slow Patience\" (F-Beat Records, 1980)\n\"Arms Race\" b/w \"Lonesome Little Town\" (F-Beat Records, 1980)\n\nThe Imposters / Costello albums \n When I Was Cruel (2002)\n The Delivery Man (2004)\n The River in Reverse (2006)\n Momofuku (2008)\n National Ransom (2010)\n Look Now (2018)\n\nReferences\n\nElvis Costello & the Attractions members\nEnglish new wave musical groups\nElvis Costello\nMusical groups established in 1977\nMusical backing groups",
"This page lists albums, singles, and compilations by the musician Elvis Costello, distinguishing between United States and United Kingdom release dates and record labels. Of note are the reissue series, Costello's back catalogue having undergone reissue three times by three different companies.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nNotes\nA ^ Some reissues of This Year's Model are credited to 'Elvis Costello and The Attractions'.\nB ^ Elvis Costello is the composer of this orchestral score for ballet. The work is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nBox sets\n\nEPs\n\nSingles\nThe following is a list of all Costello's commercially available singles. The key for the Artist Credit below is as follows:\n\nNotes\nE ^ \"Watching the Detectives\" was a stand-alone single in the UK but was subsequently included on US versions of My Aim Is True.\nF ^ \"(I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea\" was not included on US versions of This Year's Model. \"Radio Radio\" was a stand-alone single in the UK but was subsequently included on US versions of This Year's Model.\nG ^ The Attractions played on almost all of Costello's singles from 1978 to 1984 (and sporadically thereafter), but note that 1980's \"New Amsterdam\" was a solo single on which Elvis Costello played all instruments. Accordingly, The Attractions were not credited.\nH ^ \"I Wanna Be Loved\" / \"Turning the Town Red\" was tracked as a double A-side in the UK, with both sides charting. \"Turning The Town Red\" did not initially appear on Goodbye Cruel World, although it has been added as a bonus track to some CD reissues of this album.\nI ^ Although the Attractions played on \"Sulky Girl\" and \"13 Steps Lead Down\", these tracks were credited simply to Elvis Costello.\nJ ^ The backing musicians on \"Tear Off Your Own Head\" and \"45\" were Steve Nieve, Davey Faragher, and Pete Thomas, later to be collectively billed as \"The Imposters\". However, these releases are credited solely to Costello.\nK ^ \"Brilliant Mistake\" was released as a UK single in 2005, 19 years after the track first appeared on the album King of America. Though the album was credited to The Costello Show, the single release was credited to Elvis Costello.\nL ^ Both \"A Slow Drag With Josephine\" and \"Jimmie Standing In The Rain\" were issued as limited edition 78 rpm 10\" singles. For these single releases, the design conceit was to emulate the look of a real 1930s 78 rpm single, and accordingly the artist credit on the label was given as \"The Lupotones (Vocal refrain by Elvis Costello)\"\n\nLimited edition singles\n\nContributions\n\nStudio\n\nLive/alternate takes\n\nOther work\n\nAlbums which credit Costello as a featured artist\n\nGuest appearances\n\nRemixes\n\nAlbums\n\nEPs\n\nwith the New Basement Tapes\n\nReferences\n\nDiscography\nRock music discographies\nNew wave discographies\nDiscographies of British artists"
] |
[
"Al Costello",
"Fabulous Kangaroos",
"Who did Costello team with?",
"a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan.",
"Who was Costello billed as?",
"The Fabulous Kangaroos"
] | C_21de02ad9fca45fba7f83206cf4c6cab_1 | Where did Costello move to? | 3 | Where did Al Costello move to? | Al Costello | For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion. After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Perez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later. Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California. The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer. CANNOTANSWER | Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer. | Giacomo Costa (14 December 1919 – 22 January 2000) was an Italian Australian professional wrestler best known by his ring name, Al Costello. Costello was the first professional wrestler to be nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Holds" because of his innovative and very technical style.
Costello was the creator and original member of the tag team The Fabulous Kangaroos, whose "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with boomerangs, bush hats and the song "Waltzing Matilda" as their entrance music, existed in various forms from 1957 until 1983. Costello was either an active wrestler, or a manager in all versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos. He and Roy Heffernan are arguably the most famous version of The Kangaroos, regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling, and are often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Costello later formed other versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos with Ray St. Clair, Don Kent and Tony Charles. He also managed the team of Don Kent & Bruno Bekkar and later on "Johnny Heffernan" under The Fabulous Kangaroos name.
Costello officially retired from wrestling in 1983 but still made a few brief returns to the ring after that. In 1993, he managed The New Fabulous Kangaroos (Denny Kass and Al Snow) before retiring completely from the wrestling business. Both Costello and his tag team partner Heffernan died before Kangaroos were honored as the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003, which started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.
Early life
Costa was born in the village of Lingua, in the Italian island of Santa Marina Salina, Sicily, and lived there until his family immigrated to Australia when he was six years old. The family settled in Rockdale, New South Wales, where Costa helped out in his father's fruit store. He excelled at school sports, and became interested in weightlifting at an early age. At age 16, Costa took up amateur boxing despite his father's wishes that he should become an opera singer. Costa was approached by Australian middleweight wrestling champion "Basher Bonas", who convinced him to try wrestling. Costa made his debut under an assumed name; his father still had hopes of him becoming an opera singer, and he did not want his parents to find out that he was wrestling. He came up with the name "Al Costello", thinking it sounded tough like a portmanteau of Al Capone and Frank Costello.
Wrestling career
Al Costello made his professional wrestling debut in 1938, but the man that would be known as "The Man of a Thousand Holds" 20 years later, found little success early in his career. The general belief in Australian professional wrestling at the time was that a wrestler had to go to North America and learn how to be a pro before the bookers would even consider pushing them up the card. Costello travelled across Asia, where he did see some success; he won the Malaysian Heavyweight title in 1939, as well as the South Africa trophy in 1949. During the 1950s, Costello finally started to turn heads at home by winning the Australasian title. In 1952, Costello began wrestling in America, hoping to finally break through and make a big name of himself.
Fabulous Kangaroos
For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion.
After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later.
Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California.
The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer.
Between Kangaroos
Heffernan returned to Australia and began working for World Championship Wrestling (the Australian version, not the North American wrestling federation) under booker Jim Barnett as a singles wrestler. Costello was originally supposed to return to Australia as well and work for WCW, but those plans never came through. Instead, Costello remained in the United States and kept working in the tag team division, never seeking a career as a singles wrestler. Costello began wrestling for Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he teamed up with Louis Tillet to form a tag team known as "The Globetrotters"; a name that played off Costello's Australian and Tillet's French heritage. The Globetrotters defeated the Mysterious Medics in the finals of the Georgia NWA World Tag Team Championship but only held the titles for a week before losing them to Kurt and Karl Von Brauner on 4 February 1966. After this, the Globetrotters broke up due to differences in their approach to tag teaming.
Costello then moved to the NWA Mid-America territory near Nashville, Tennessee. In Mid-American, Costello teamed with Herb Welch to win the Mid-American version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, which they held for just over 2 months. While still working in Mid-America, Costello began to team with Karl Von Brauner, who used a "German Nazi" gimmick despite being American. Under the management of "Playboy" Gary Hart, Costello and Von Brauner were billed as "The Internationals"; the team was later managed by George "Crybaby" Cannon. The Internationals worked mainly in Tennessee and Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to Fritz and Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. Kurt then decided to go back to teaming with his storyline brother, Karl Von Brauner.
After the Internationals broke up, Costello returned to Australia to visit friends and relatives and to recuperate after many years on the road. On his way back to the United States, Costello had a stop over in Detroit, Michigan, where he met Cleo Williams. The two fell in love and married shortly afterwards, remaining together for the rest of Costello's life.
Kangaroos once more
In 1967, Al Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos, this time teaming up with Ray St. Clair. The team had been touring non-stop for about six months when St. Clair was forced to retire due to knee problems. A few months after St. Clair retired, Costello found a new man to don the bush hat: Don Kent. Kent, who was from Michigan, adopted the Ultra-Australian gimmick (but retained his American accent) and the two formed the third overall and second most well-known version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. Costello and Kent teamed together on a regular basis from 1968 until 1974, approximately the same amount of time that Costello spent teaming with his original partner, Roy Heffernan. Costello and Kent continued in a tradition that was reminiscent of the original Kangaroos; when a federation needed a new tag team title, The Kangaroos were brought in and acknowledged as champions upon arrival instead of holding a tournament to determine the champions. In 1967, the Japanese federation "International Wrestling Enterprise" (IWE) brought The Kangaroos in as the first Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Champions. They held this title until 10 January 1968 when IWE mainstays Toyonobori and Thunder Sugiyama beat them for the gold. Over the years, many more title reigns came from various promotions all over the globe. In Canada, The Kangaroos were the first Eastern Sports Association International Tag Team Champions. In the World Wrestling Association of Indianapolis, they held the WWA World Tag Team Championship twice. In addition to winning titles all over North America, Costello and Kent also made appearances for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE).
The Kangaroos frequented NWA Detroit, where they held the Detroit version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship for most of 1971. By the end of 1972, The Kangaroos began working for Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America. In Mid-America, they held the local version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the Mid-America version, on three occasions.
After a match at Cincinnati Gardens, an enraged fan took a fire extinguisher off the wall and threw it at Costello and Kent from the balcony of the Gardens. The extinguisher hit Costello in the hip, damaging it so much that he needed hip replacement surgery later that year. The fan was arrested, served 15 days in jail, and fined fifty dollars for damaging the fire extinguisher. The hip injury left Costello unable to wrestle, and The Fabulous Kangaroos split up once again. Costello had a full hip replacement and was forced to retire from active competition.
Managing
In 1975, Costello surprised everyone by returning to professional wrestling as the manager of the team known as "The Love Brothers" (Hartford and Reggie Love). He actually stepped into the ring on occasion as part of special six-man tag team matches.
After recovering from his hip surgery, Costello returned to active competition at age 56. The fact that he was able to recover from such a major injury is credited to his almost-fanatical style of healthy living. As a devout vegan, Costello credited his meat-free diet with his recovery, as well as the remarkable shape he was in for a man of his age.
Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos once more, this time teaming up with wrestler Tony Charles. The team defeated Dominic DeNucci and Chris Markoff to win Detroit's version of the NWA World Tag Team title, the same title that Costello and Kent had previously held. The Kangaroos title run was short, however, and they lost their gold to "Crazy" Luke Graham and Ripper Collins.
In 1977, Tony Charles was replaced by Don Kent and the two reunited for a tour of Puerto Rico with the World Wrestling Council (WWC). In Puerto Rico, The Kangaroos arrived billed as the WWC World Tag Team Champions, once more to give a newly created title legitimacy. They dropped the titles to Carlos Colón and Jose Rivera on 12 March 1977 and remained in the WWC until 1978 chasing, but never regaining, the WWC World Tag Team Championship. After their tour in Puerto Rico ended, Don Kent returned to singles wrestling, and Costello refocused on managing.
Still a Kangaroo
In 1981, Costello convinced Kent to once again don the bush hat and pick up the boomerang. Costello got Kent to team up with Bruno Bekkar, who was mostly known from working in his native New Zealand and Australia. Kent and Bekkar worked a tour for the WWC, while Costello served as their manager. The team won the WWC North American Tag Team titles from Jack and Jerry Brisco on 22 October 1981. They then lost the titles to Invader I and Super Gladiator but quickly gained them back before dropping the titles for good to Invader and Gladiator on 26 January 1982. The Kent and Bekkar team only lasted through one tour of the Caribbean, after which Bruno Bekkar returned to Australia and New Zealand to work for the local promotions there.
Bekkar was replaced with Johnny Heffernan (Canadian wrestler Bob Della Serra), a storyline cousin of Roy Heffernan, for what was the final version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. The team ended Terry and Dory Funk Jr.'s year and a half run with the WWC World Tag Team championship on 1 May 1982. Kent and Heffernan held the gold for less than two months before losing the WWC World Tag Team titles to Invader I and Pierre Martel. After a tour in Puerto Rico, Costello, Kent and Heffernan returned to work for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF), a promotion The Kangaroos last worked for in 1962. In Florida, The Kangaroos won the NWA Florida Global Tag Team Championship four times. The final storyline involving The Fabulous Kangaroos saw Al Costello bring in J.J. Dillon to act as his short term replacement while he was "away on business". When Costello returned from his business trip, Dillon kayfabe refused to give up The Kangaroos' contracts and was backed up by both Kent and Heffernan. This angle was designed to write Al Costello out of The Fabulous Kangaroos' storyline and allow him to retire from wrestling altogether. Not long after Costello retired, Kent and Johnny Heffernan went their separate ways.
Retirement
After retiring from wrestling, Al Costello became the head of security at College Harbor, Florida. In 1992, at the age of 71, Costello retired from his job in Florida and began teaching wrestling. He also started to manage The New Fabulous Kangaroos in 1993, a team consisting of Mickey Doyle and Denny Kass who worked for "Motor City Wrestling" (MCW). By the fall of 1993, Mickey Doyle had been replaced by a young wrestler by the name of Al Snow; with Costello's help The New Fabulous Kangaroos defeated "Canadian Lighting" (Otis Apollo and "Irish" Bobby Clancy), on 29 December 1993, to win the MCW Tag Team Championship. On 14 May 1994, Kass and Snow defeated Canadian Lighting again to win the Border City Wrestling (BCW) Can-Am Tag Team Championship, unifying the two tag team championships. A week later, The New Fabulous Kangaroos lost both sets of titles to Scott D'Amore and "Irish" Bobby Clancy. After losing the unified MCW/BCW Tag Team championships, The New Kangaroos split up; Snow focused on his World Wrestling Federation career while Costello retired for good, never making another wrestling related appearance.
Death
On 22 January 2000, Costello died from a combination of pneumonia and heart problems, in Clearwater, Florida. In 2003, Al Costello and Roy Heffernan became the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but The Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first. In the tradition of the Kangaroos, they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time.
Championships and accomplishments
Alex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)
International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Capitol Wrestling Corporation
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northeast version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Cauliflower Alley Club
Other honoree (1994)
Championship Wrestling from Florida
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version)(1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Eastern Sports Association
ESA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Georgia Championship Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Georgia version) 1 time – with Louie Tillet
International Wrestling Enterprise
Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Japan Wrestling Association
NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Midwest Wrestling Association
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Ohio version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Mike London Promotions
Rocky Mountain Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
National Wrestling Alliance
NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)
NWA All-Star Wrestling
NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship (Vancouver version) (4 times) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA Big Time Wrestling
NWA American Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Karl Von Brauner
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan (1), Karl Von Brauner (1)
NWA Detroit
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Detroit version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan (2), Ray St. Clair (1)
NWA Mid-America
NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version) 4 times) - with Don Kent (3), Herb Welch (1)
New Zealand Wrestling Union
NWA Australasian Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2003 - with Roy Heffernan
Western States Sports
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Roy HeffernanA
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Amarillo version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Association
WWA World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Don Kent
Worldwide Wrestling Associates
WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
WWA International Television Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Council
WWC World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996) with Roy Heffernan
References
External links
New Fabulous Kangaroos Tribute page
Roy Heffernan Interview
1919 births
2000 deaths
Australian male professional wrestlers
Italian emigrants to Australia
Italian male professional wrestlers
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Sportspeople from the Province of Messina
Stampede Wrestling alumni
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida | true | [
"Carol Costello (born October 11, 1961) is an American television anchor and former host of CNN Newsroom. In 2017, she left CNN to join sister network HLN, based in Los Angeles. In October 2018, HLN announced that Costello would be let go, with the final broadcast of her show taking place on October 26.\n\nEarly life and education\nCostello is a graduate of Minerva High School, a public high school in Minerva, Ohio, and Kent State University where she earned a B.A. in journalism. After attending Kent State University, Costello worked at Akron, Ohio's WAKR-TV as an award-winning police and court reporter. Following that Costello was an Emmy-award-winning anchor/reporter for WSYX, the ABC affiliate, and WBNS 10-TV, the CBS affiliate in Columbus, Ohio. She also worked as the 6 and 11pm news anchor for WBAL-TV in Baltimore between 1992 and 1995.\n\nCareer\n\nCNN\nCostello worked as an anchor at CNN Headline News (now called HLN) and was also the anchor of Good Morning Washington and an investigative reporter at WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., during the September 11 attacks.\n\nShe previously worked out of the network's New York City bureau. She was part of CNN's Peabody-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 presidential election, and also covered the Virginia Tech massacre, the inauguration of Barack Obama and the Casey Anthony trial. Costello has done in-depth reporting on bullying, coal ash, and women's issues. After a CNN viewer nominated her, Costello ran with the Olympic torch through the streets of Atlanta prior to the Atlanta Olympics.\n\nAs a reporter and anchor, Costello has interviewed Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Previously, Costello anchored the CNN early morning program CNN Daybreak and also was news reader and correspondent on American Morning. She was the anchor of CNN Daybreak, then a New York-based correspondent, and subsequently a contributor to The Situation Room. Costello hosted the 9 am–11 am slot of CNN Newsroom, based out of CNN's New York news bureau.\n\nCostello elicited criticism when she referred to audio of Bristol Palin describing an assault on her to police as \"quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we've ever come across.\" Paul Bedard called Costello's \"rude and crude enjoyment\" an easy slap by a prominent female media star on a young woman. Costello later stated that \"in retrospect, I deserve such criticism and would like to apologize.\"\n\nOn January 30, 2017, Costello announced that she would return to HLN to host a new program from Los Angeles. On August 21, 2017 her new show Across America with Carol Costello debuted.\n\nOn October 16, 2018 it was announced by HLN that Costello was to be laid off, along with Michaela Pereira and Ashleigh Banfield, as part of the network's decision to scale back their live news programming. The final broadcasts for their programs took place on Friday, October 26, 2018. Although both Ashleigh Banfield and Michaela Pereira stayed to host their shows until their last days, Costello did not appear on air after October 16, 2018 with CNN correspondent Dianne Gallagher hosting the final broadcast.\n\nSince then, Costello has taken a more active role at Loyola Marymount University where she serves as first lady. She is a professor in the newly established journalism major and now also hosts a podcast developed by the university. According to Costello herself, she had been wanting to start a new venture for a while, even back on her days at CNN.\n\nPersonal life\nA former resident of Atlanta, Georgia, Costello moved to the New York area after marrying Timothy Law Snyder in 2004. She and Snyder later moved to Baltimore, Maryland. In October 2015, Snyder was named president of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In January 2017, Costello cited her husband's relocation as a primary factor in her decision to leave CNN for HLN and move to Los Angeles.\n\nIn April 2015, Costello wrote that she became a \"lapsed Catholic\" after losing her younger brother Jimmy to cancer when she was 25. However, she stated that Pope Francis \"reawakened my faith\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nProfile at CNN website\n\n1961 births\nAmerican television news anchors\nKent State University alumni\nLiving people\nAmerican broadcast news analysts\nPeople from Minerva, Ohio\nAmerican women television journalists\nCNN people\nJournalists from Ohio\n21st-century American women",
"Declan Costello (1 August 1926 – 6 June 2011) was an Irish judge, barrister and Fine Gael politician who served as President of the High Court from 1995 to 1998, a Judge of the High Court from 1977 to 1998 and Attorney General of Ireland from 1973 to 1977. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency from 1951 to 1969 and for the Dublin South-West constituency from 1973 to 1977.\n\nThe formulator of the Towards a Just Society policy document, Costello was credited with shifting Fine Gael towards the left, a move which made the party a more attractive coalition partner for the Labour Party. Costello's ideals were later viewed as having been taken up by Garret FitzGerald, who became leader of Fine Gael and was twice Taoiseach. As Attorney General of Ireland, Costello created the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Law Reform Commission, and for this Costello has been called the \"most consequential attorney general in the state's history\".\n\nBackground\nDavid Declan Costello was born and grew up in Dublin, the son of John A. Costello who served as Taoiseach on two occasions. He was educated at University College Dublin (UCD), where he studied Law and Economics from 1943, and was an auditor of the UCD Law Society. In 1944 he entered King's Inn on a scholarship. During his time in UCD, he won a number of medals for debating in the Law Society and the Literary and Historical Society. His time as a student was interrupted in 1946 due to a bout of tuberculosis of the kidney which forced him to spend 10 months in a health clinic in Switzerland. He would survive the disease but at the cost of one of his kidneys, which would leave him in relative frail health and appearance for the rest of his life. Due to a relapse of his condition in 1947 that forced him to once again return to Switzerland, he missed his father's ascent to the office of Taoiseach in February 1948.\n\nIn 1948, Costello completed his degree and was joined the Irish bar and began practising law in and around Dublin.\n\nPolitical Career\n\nBecoming a TD and early social influences\n\nHaving an obvious deep connection to the party, Costello had been a member of Fine Gael since joining college. In 1951, at the age of just 24, he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD for the Dublin North-West constituency during that year's general election. He was the youngest member of the house at the time, earning him the unofficial position of the \"Baby of the Dáil\". The following years would significantly influence Costello's political views; his exposure to the poor living conditions of his constituents in Dublin North-west radically altered his views on housing. In 1953 Costello married Joan Fitzsimons. With Joan, Costello would go on to have four sons and two daughters. One of these sons was later found to have autism, and the cause of children with special needs quickly became an area of special concern for Costello, particularly as \"his elder brother Wilfrid had been left with a mild mental disability during birth\". Costello co-founded the Association of Parents and Friends of Mentally Handicapped Children (renamed St Michael's House in later years) in 1955, and aided in the fund-raising for a daycare centre in 1956 for the education of children who were mentally disabled. The fundraising would lead to the daycare centre becoming known as an official school in 1960. Beginning in 1956 until he died in 2011, Costello was the St Michael's House president, making him ultimately responsible for 170 centres across the Dublin region.\n\nStepping out of his father's shadow\nIn 1954 John Costello became Taoiseach for a second time while Declan retain his seat. Although Declan was not placed in a cabinet position, he had a measure of influence over his father and the government. Considered the most radical of those who advised his father, Declan pushed against the austerity measures of Minister for Finance Gerard Sweetman, who in time would become a great rival and adversary. Following the 1957 Irish general election, in which Fine Gael and its coalition partners lost control of the government to Fianna Fáil, Costello became Fine Gael's spokesperson on foreign affairs. In this capacity, Costello asserted liberal, anti-communist views while encouraging European integration amongst the growing European Economic Community organisation. Two issues, in particular, drew his attention: the government’s support for the withdrawal of Russian and US forces from Europe, and the support given for a resolution favouring the inclusion of “Communist China” as part of the UN.\n\nIt was also at this time that he began to advocate that Fine Gael move politically leftward in order to broaden its image beyond that of simply being a status quo, bourgeois party, as well as to make it a more attractive coalition partner to the Labour party. Towards the end of the 1950s, Costello began to assert himself even more in Fine Gael; alongside a growing collection of progressives within the party, Costello founded a monthly political magazine as well as a research and study group focused on developing new policies for the party. However, to their disappointment, Costello and his faction found the rest of Fine Gael slow and sluggish in response to their new ideas, and thought that they were against complex making of policies and the voicing of personal differences in public. Following his father's retirement from politics in 1959, longstanding member James Dillon took control of the leadership of the party and Costello felt his ability to influence policy-making slipping away.\n\nThe Just Society\nIn 1963 Costello found an attempt to change party policy suppressed by the party leadership. Regardless, in April 1964 Costello broke party protocols and circulated a proposal to radically alter Fine Gael's economic policies. At this point Costello did not expect his proposal to gain traction within the party; instead it was to be used as a pretext to leave the party and politics, and to turn to his work as a lawyer. Costello neither canvassed other party members nor spoke to the press following the circulation of his document. However, to his surprise, Costello's ideas began to pick up momentum with Fine Gael backbenchers, who had begun to crave a means by which Fine Gael could differentiate itself from Fianna Fáil. Journalists too began to take an interest in the initiative, sensing a new direction emerging in Irish politics. \n\nCostello began to argue his case with the Fine Gael frontbench, and using his honed debate skills, dominated proceedings. Unable to outright repudiate Costello's ideas, the frontbench sought to bog down discussions and drag them out. However, in March of 1965 the party was shocked by the development that Fianna Fáil were seeking to hold a general election. Caught with no time to develop a separate manifesto other than what Costello was proposing, suddenly Costello's ideas were given the green light. He should go to expand his initial policy document into a 30,000-word manifesto called Towards a Just Society. The document would go on to have a major impact on the party for many decades. \n\nTowards a Just Society called for a radical shift in the Irish economy to something closer to a social democratic mixed economy; it called for production objectives in the private-sector, earnings and credit from banks to be controlled, no discrimination of women's wages, industrial school reformation, lower use of indirect taxes, free near-universal health care with the decision of what doctor to have, and an educational system that permits moving to university despite being wealthy or not. Although radical, because of its length Towards a Just Society was difficult to communicate to the Irish public in the short time the party had to campaign in the 1965 Irish general election. Fine Gael did not make gains in the elections, and afterwards, Labour were rattled by the move, and in response, they themselves also moved more to the left. However, the Just Society's critique of public services in Ireland forced Fianna Fáil to alter their policies, and during the election, they made promises in regards to housing, health and welfare. Costello's political profile was enhanced by the Just Society concept.\n\nAfter the 1965 election \nCostello continued his work as a TD for Dublin North-West and came to seek the leadership of Fine Gael to continue his Just Society project. His opportunity came quickly, as following the 1965 election James Dillon stepped down as leader of the party. However, Costello was politically outmanoeuvred by Dillon and Sweetman who moved rapidly to place Liam Cosgrave as Dillon's successor, and were successful. In the aftermath, a dejected Costello sought to become the party's spokesperson for Finance, but instead was handed the position of spokesperson for health and social welfare. Costello was further frustrated by Cosgrave's limp espousal of the Just Society concept. \n\nPost-1965, Costello's health once again began to haunt him, and his position as de facto leader of Fine Gael's progressive faction increasing fell to a young Garret FitzGerald, whom Costello himself had brought into the party. Like Costello, Fitzgerald was the son of a stalwart of the party, being the son of Desmond Fitzgerald, and like Costello Fitzgerald shook off the traditional conservatism of his father to embrace a more social liberal outlook. In February 1967, Costello said that he will not aim for the dáil again and focused on his successful legal work. Michael O'Leary of Labour lamented that Irish politics would be losing a \"young man of great courage and idealism\". Fine Gael backbencher John Healy wrote \"He has been lost to Fine Gael almost from the day Mr Liam Cosgrave took over, reshuffled his deck and left Declan Costello on the fringe of things. Declan Costello deserved better: he did not get it\". \n\nIn 1968/1969, Costello successfully defended Sean Bourke against extradition to the United Kingdom in relation to his abetting of Soviet double agent George Blake escaping from prison. In 1972 Costello unsuccessfully defended journalist Kevin O'Kelly against contempt of court charges, arising from a radio interview he conducted with Provisional IRA leader Seán Mac Stiofáin. O'Kelly was sentenced to three months in prison. \n\nAlthough outside the confines of Fine Gael, Costello continued to remain in the political sphere. He would host parties and meetings of Fine Gael and Labour members, where they would discuss possible Fine Gael/Labour coalitions, how to dislodge Cosgrave as leader of Fine Gael and even the possibility of forming a new political party. When the prospects of an actual Fine Gael/Labour coalition became more and more tangible from 1970 onwards, Costello announced he would stand for the Dáil in the next election. He stood in a different constituency from his previous one, moving to Dublin South-West, but nevertheless was successfully elected at the 1973 Irish general election. The inclusion of a progressive such as Costello on the Fine Gael ticket helped cement the Fine Gael/Labour coalition.\n\nAttorney General of Ireland\nWhen Fine Gael returned to government in 1973, Costello was appointed Attorney General of Ireland under Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave. By focusing on his successes in the legal profession, Cosgrave was able to prevent Costello from holding a ministry without dismissing him out of hand. Regardless, Costello accepted the position, even though it actually meant he would earn less money than if he continued his private law practice. As per the custom in Ireland, Costello as Attorney General rarely spoke in the Dáil. However, he was influential amongst the cabinet, where his views were held in high regard by the minister for foreign affairs Garret FitzGerald, and members of Labour, such as Justin Keating who was the minister for industry and commerce. \n\nIn his role as attorney general, Costello took part in the negotiations for the Sunningdale Agreement. Costello took his cues from John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the main nationalist party in Northern Ireland at the time, and like Hume was successful in pushing for very capable all-Ireland establishments. When the agreement was challenged as unconstitutional, it was Costello's role to defend it. He did so successfully in the courts, but his ultra-aggressive defence of it contributed to the disdain in which Unionists held it, and in turn, they would cause the collapse of the agreement in early 1974. \n\nCostello pushed, unsuccessfully, for family law in Ireland to be updated so that it would be more sympathetic to forsaken wives, mothers who were not married, and out of wedlock-born children, as well as other more liberal values. In 1974, he also was the main person to promote a bill that would have liberalised the purchase of contraceptives in Ireland by allowing married couples to access them without barrier. However, the bill failed when six members of Fine Gael, including most prominently of all Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, voted against it.\n\nAs Attorney General, Costello refused requests by members of the coalition to have their constituents' minor criminal charges squashed, an established practice in Ireland. Costello sought to depoliticise the office of Attorney General, and successfully did so in 1975 upon his establishment of the Director of Public Prosecutions's office. From then on, briefs for criminal cases would be apportioned despite party relationship. Finding many of his attempts to reform Irish law stifled by a combination of bureaucratic lethargy and defiance from vested interests, Costello founded the Law Reform Commission in 1975. Although the Law Reform Commission lacked resources or political support, in time it was able to produce significant legal reform in Ireland thanks to its institutional status. \n\nDuring his time as Attorney General, Costello proved to be a thorn in the side of the British government. Costello was vocal in his belief that, wherever possible, the Irish state should refuse to extradite Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners to the United Kingdom. Costello's stance was born out of his experience in 1973 when he was in charge of Ireland's case with the European Commission of Human Rights being against the UK for the internment and torture of nationalists in Northern Ireland. Costello had been convinced he needed to establish precedent in international law on the matter, regardless of diplomatic concerns. Engaging the political right and tabloid press in the UK, Costello was able to prove in court that the British state was illegally using sensory deprivation techniques on prisoners. In 1977, it was decided by the court that the prisoners were treated harmfully before giving the verdict of the UK being cleared of torture.\n\nFor having created the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Law Reform Commission, Costello has been called the \"most consequential attorney general in the state's history\".\n\nJudicial career \nAlthough the Fine Gael/Labour coalition had expanded social investment and broadened the tax base in Ireland, its more ambitious plans were halted by the 1973 oil crisis as well as by the deepening of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A by-election in Dublin South-West in 1976 signalled that his own seat was in danger, and Costello responded he would not try to be re-elected. Instead, Liam Cosgrove made him a judge of the high court in May 1977. \n\nAs a judge, Costello was described as \"stern, meticulous and industrious\". He specialised in equity. In response to growing paramilitarism, Costello developed \"sophisticated asset-freezing orders and search warrants\". One tendency for which Costello was noted, was for early case decisions as to the rights and wrongs of each party's intentions, and encouraging the applicable barrister to make a satisfactory legal argument. Costello did not care much for precedent; instead he favoured \"creative use of technicalities\" and his decisions were considered all but appeal-proof. A number of Costello's decisions on intellectual property were cited internationally. \n\nFollowing the Whiddy Island disaster in 1979, in which 50 people lost their lives in an oil tanker explosion, Costello became the tribunal's head created to investigate the matter. His report on the incident was highly critical of the two international companies responsible for handling the tanker (TotalEnergies and Gulf Oil), but also of a terminal controller on-site as well as the Irish authorities for failing to supervise safety practices. Costello was subsequently praised for his speedy but thorough handling of the investigation. \n\nAfter the Widdy Island investigation, Costello was appointed chairman of two committees: one created for the development of a national youth policy, and the other to guide the charity sector's governance; both produced comprehensive reports but their findings were effectively ignored. In 1985 Costello upheld the firing of Eileen Flynn, an unmarried woman who had given birth to a child while working as a teacher at a Catholic-run school. He ultimately supported the nuns who ran the school and their contention that Flynn's “conduct was capable of damaging” their efforts to uphold Catholic “norms of behaviour”. \n\nCostello's decisions as a judge were informed by his belief \"that the Irish constitution was best understood in the light of its Christian preamble and of passages acknowledging an ethical order superior to formal law.\" Based on this interpretation, Costello believed that \"Irish judges could override laws that contravened the classical Christian iteration of natural law as formulated by St Thomas Aquinas, which stressed morality and economic justice.\" Conversely, Costello advised Irish judges to practice utmost restraint in actually exercising these powers. \n\nIn 1989 Costello ruled on matters involving \"the limits of judicial authority\"; During O'Reilly v. Limerick Corporation (1989), Costello ruled that the courts could not adjudicate over the state's distribution of public resources, as this required specialist knowledge. In 1993, Costello ruled \"that the Office of Public Works was not exempt from the planning process.\" In 1995, Costello ruled that a \"withholding tax\" was unconstitutional, a decision which was said to have cost the state around £60 million.\n\nThe X Case\n \nIn 1992 Costello was drawn into one of the most high-profile legal cases in the history of the Irish state. In February the Attorney General of Ireland, Harry Whelehan, wanted an injunction for the high court due to the restraining of a 14-year-old, by Costello, who was a victim of statutory rape, known by 'X', from travelling outside of Ireland for have an abortion. Costello was forced to weigh the argument that there was a high probability of \"X\" committing suicide unless they were allowed to travel against the argument that a 1983 constitutional amendment in Ireland explicitly granted the \"right to life\" to the fetus. Costello made the decision \"that the certainty of the fetus dying in an abortion outweighed the possibility of a suicide\", and granted the injunction. The response was explosive; there was international condemnation of the decision. On February 26, the Supreme Court of Ireland overturned Costello's ruling. Costello's ruling was opined to be in breach of European law, which \"protects the right to travel for services lawfully provided\" in other EU countries, although an official ruling on that thinking was avoided. That same year, a constitutional amendment was created that guarantees \"the right of a pregnant woman to go abroad\". \n\nThe X Case had shocked Costello's liberal admirers, but nevertheless his appointment as President of the High Court in 1995 was not judged to be controversial, partly because he had been acting president since 1991. As president, Costello created procedures which allowed \"urgent cases to be dealt with faster\" before retiring as a judge in December 1997. Costello's final act as a public figure was \"to head an inquiry into the tax evasion conspiracy directed by the Guinness and Mahon Bank\". Having taken the position in 1999, he retired from it in 2000 upon medical advice.\n\nPolitical influences\nCostello has been described as a \"devotee\" of the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, a beliver that \"human rights existed to serve the common good rather than individual autonomy\". Costello himself cited British Labour party leader Hugh Gaitskell, Irish socialist James Connolly, Irish Minister for Justice Kevin O'Higgins and US President John F. Kennedy as political influences and leaders whom he admired. Researcher Ciara Meehan has suggested that the influence of Pope John XXIII's Mater et magistra in 1961 was a clear influence upon the Just Society document.\n\nPersonal life\nIn 1950, Jacqueline Bouvier, later to become better known as Jackie Kennedy, was staying for a time in Ireland. She had befriended Father Joseph Leonard, an elderly priest who lived in Drumcondra, Dublin. It was through Father Leonard that Bouvier was introduced to the Costello family. Bouvier had confessed to Father Leonard that she was seeking a husband at the time, and Leonard suggested that Declan, then 24 years old, would be a good match. Bouvier wrote to Leonard that Declan \"sounds like absolute heaven\" and that he would make a \"suitable\" husband. However, the match was never to come about as Bouvier continued her travels onwards to Scotland, and later returned to the United States while Costello married Joan Fitzsimons in 1953. Jacqueline would return to Ireland in 1955 as Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy alongside her new husband US Senator (and future US President) John F. Kennedy, whom she introduced to the Costello family. Jacqueline would later write in a private letter to Costello recalling a double date between the couples: \"That night we dined at Jammet's and our happy marriage was nearly rent asunder because Jack was enchanted by Joan and I was enchanted with you -- but somehow we patched it all up at the movies\" \n\nCostello and his wife Joan would have six children together, including Caroline Costello who followed in his footsteps and also became a Judge. \n\nCostello died on 6 June 2011 in Rathfarnham, Dublin following a long illness.\n\nLegacy\nThe impact of Declan Costello's Just Society concept has continued to be felt decades after it was published. The Just Society document had been called \"a milestone\" in the party's history and remains frequently referenced. During the 1980s, Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach was considered to be the champion of the Just Society concept. During the 2017 Fine Gael leadership election between Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney, Coveney put forward that he would bring the party back in line with the concepts stipulated in the Just Society document. It was also during that 2017 leadership contest that leading member of Fine Gael, Paschal Donohoe, published an opinon piece in the Irish Times in which he heavily praised the Just Society document and called for it to once again become a centrepiece of Fine Gael's policies.\n\nSee also\nFamilies in the Oireachtas\nAttorney General v. X\n\nReferences\n\n1926 births\n2011 deaths\nAttorneys General of Ireland\nAlumni of University College Dublin\nFine Gael TDs\nIrish barristers\nJacqueline Kennedy Onassis\nMembers of the 14th Dáil\nMembers of the 15th Dáil\nMembers of the 16th Dáil\nMembers of the 17th Dáil\nMembers of the 18th Dáil\nMembers of the 20th Dáil\nPoliticians from County Dublin\nPresidents of the High Court (Ireland)"
] |
[
"Al Costello",
"Fabulous Kangaroos",
"Who did Costello team with?",
"a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan.",
"Who was Costello billed as?",
"The Fabulous Kangaroos",
"Where did Costello move to?",
"Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer."
] | C_21de02ad9fca45fba7f83206cf4c6cab_1 | Who were "the internationals"? | 4 | Who were "The Internationals" in relation to Al Costello? | Al Costello | For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion. After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Perez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later. Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California. The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Giacomo Costa (14 December 1919 – 22 January 2000) was an Italian Australian professional wrestler best known by his ring name, Al Costello. Costello was the first professional wrestler to be nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Holds" because of his innovative and very technical style.
Costello was the creator and original member of the tag team The Fabulous Kangaroos, whose "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with boomerangs, bush hats and the song "Waltzing Matilda" as their entrance music, existed in various forms from 1957 until 1983. Costello was either an active wrestler, or a manager in all versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos. He and Roy Heffernan are arguably the most famous version of The Kangaroos, regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling, and are often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Costello later formed other versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos with Ray St. Clair, Don Kent and Tony Charles. He also managed the team of Don Kent & Bruno Bekkar and later on "Johnny Heffernan" under The Fabulous Kangaroos name.
Costello officially retired from wrestling in 1983 but still made a few brief returns to the ring after that. In 1993, he managed The New Fabulous Kangaroos (Denny Kass and Al Snow) before retiring completely from the wrestling business. Both Costello and his tag team partner Heffernan died before Kangaroos were honored as the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003, which started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.
Early life
Costa was born in the village of Lingua, in the Italian island of Santa Marina Salina, Sicily, and lived there until his family immigrated to Australia when he was six years old. The family settled in Rockdale, New South Wales, where Costa helped out in his father's fruit store. He excelled at school sports, and became interested in weightlifting at an early age. At age 16, Costa took up amateur boxing despite his father's wishes that he should become an opera singer. Costa was approached by Australian middleweight wrestling champion "Basher Bonas", who convinced him to try wrestling. Costa made his debut under an assumed name; his father still had hopes of him becoming an opera singer, and he did not want his parents to find out that he was wrestling. He came up with the name "Al Costello", thinking it sounded tough like a portmanteau of Al Capone and Frank Costello.
Wrestling career
Al Costello made his professional wrestling debut in 1938, but the man that would be known as "The Man of a Thousand Holds" 20 years later, found little success early in his career. The general belief in Australian professional wrestling at the time was that a wrestler had to go to North America and learn how to be a pro before the bookers would even consider pushing them up the card. Costello travelled across Asia, where he did see some success; he won the Malaysian Heavyweight title in 1939, as well as the South Africa trophy in 1949. During the 1950s, Costello finally started to turn heads at home by winning the Australasian title. In 1952, Costello began wrestling in America, hoping to finally break through and make a big name of himself.
Fabulous Kangaroos
For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion.
After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later.
Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California.
The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer.
Between Kangaroos
Heffernan returned to Australia and began working for World Championship Wrestling (the Australian version, not the North American wrestling federation) under booker Jim Barnett as a singles wrestler. Costello was originally supposed to return to Australia as well and work for WCW, but those plans never came through. Instead, Costello remained in the United States and kept working in the tag team division, never seeking a career as a singles wrestler. Costello began wrestling for Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he teamed up with Louis Tillet to form a tag team known as "The Globetrotters"; a name that played off Costello's Australian and Tillet's French heritage. The Globetrotters defeated the Mysterious Medics in the finals of the Georgia NWA World Tag Team Championship but only held the titles for a week before losing them to Kurt and Karl Von Brauner on 4 February 1966. After this, the Globetrotters broke up due to differences in their approach to tag teaming.
Costello then moved to the NWA Mid-America territory near Nashville, Tennessee. In Mid-American, Costello teamed with Herb Welch to win the Mid-American version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, which they held for just over 2 months. While still working in Mid-America, Costello began to team with Karl Von Brauner, who used a "German Nazi" gimmick despite being American. Under the management of "Playboy" Gary Hart, Costello and Von Brauner were billed as "The Internationals"; the team was later managed by George "Crybaby" Cannon. The Internationals worked mainly in Tennessee and Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to Fritz and Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. Kurt then decided to go back to teaming with his storyline brother, Karl Von Brauner.
After the Internationals broke up, Costello returned to Australia to visit friends and relatives and to recuperate after many years on the road. On his way back to the United States, Costello had a stop over in Detroit, Michigan, where he met Cleo Williams. The two fell in love and married shortly afterwards, remaining together for the rest of Costello's life.
Kangaroos once more
In 1967, Al Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos, this time teaming up with Ray St. Clair. The team had been touring non-stop for about six months when St. Clair was forced to retire due to knee problems. A few months after St. Clair retired, Costello found a new man to don the bush hat: Don Kent. Kent, who was from Michigan, adopted the Ultra-Australian gimmick (but retained his American accent) and the two formed the third overall and second most well-known version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. Costello and Kent teamed together on a regular basis from 1968 until 1974, approximately the same amount of time that Costello spent teaming with his original partner, Roy Heffernan. Costello and Kent continued in a tradition that was reminiscent of the original Kangaroos; when a federation needed a new tag team title, The Kangaroos were brought in and acknowledged as champions upon arrival instead of holding a tournament to determine the champions. In 1967, the Japanese federation "International Wrestling Enterprise" (IWE) brought The Kangaroos in as the first Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Champions. They held this title until 10 January 1968 when IWE mainstays Toyonobori and Thunder Sugiyama beat them for the gold. Over the years, many more title reigns came from various promotions all over the globe. In Canada, The Kangaroos were the first Eastern Sports Association International Tag Team Champions. In the World Wrestling Association of Indianapolis, they held the WWA World Tag Team Championship twice. In addition to winning titles all over North America, Costello and Kent also made appearances for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE).
The Kangaroos frequented NWA Detroit, where they held the Detroit version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship for most of 1971. By the end of 1972, The Kangaroos began working for Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America. In Mid-America, they held the local version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the Mid-America version, on three occasions.
After a match at Cincinnati Gardens, an enraged fan took a fire extinguisher off the wall and threw it at Costello and Kent from the balcony of the Gardens. The extinguisher hit Costello in the hip, damaging it so much that he needed hip replacement surgery later that year. The fan was arrested, served 15 days in jail, and fined fifty dollars for damaging the fire extinguisher. The hip injury left Costello unable to wrestle, and The Fabulous Kangaroos split up once again. Costello had a full hip replacement and was forced to retire from active competition.
Managing
In 1975, Costello surprised everyone by returning to professional wrestling as the manager of the team known as "The Love Brothers" (Hartford and Reggie Love). He actually stepped into the ring on occasion as part of special six-man tag team matches.
After recovering from his hip surgery, Costello returned to active competition at age 56. The fact that he was able to recover from such a major injury is credited to his almost-fanatical style of healthy living. As a devout vegan, Costello credited his meat-free diet with his recovery, as well as the remarkable shape he was in for a man of his age.
Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos once more, this time teaming up with wrestler Tony Charles. The team defeated Dominic DeNucci and Chris Markoff to win Detroit's version of the NWA World Tag Team title, the same title that Costello and Kent had previously held. The Kangaroos title run was short, however, and they lost their gold to "Crazy" Luke Graham and Ripper Collins.
In 1977, Tony Charles was replaced by Don Kent and the two reunited for a tour of Puerto Rico with the World Wrestling Council (WWC). In Puerto Rico, The Kangaroos arrived billed as the WWC World Tag Team Champions, once more to give a newly created title legitimacy. They dropped the titles to Carlos Colón and Jose Rivera on 12 March 1977 and remained in the WWC until 1978 chasing, but never regaining, the WWC World Tag Team Championship. After their tour in Puerto Rico ended, Don Kent returned to singles wrestling, and Costello refocused on managing.
Still a Kangaroo
In 1981, Costello convinced Kent to once again don the bush hat and pick up the boomerang. Costello got Kent to team up with Bruno Bekkar, who was mostly known from working in his native New Zealand and Australia. Kent and Bekkar worked a tour for the WWC, while Costello served as their manager. The team won the WWC North American Tag Team titles from Jack and Jerry Brisco on 22 October 1981. They then lost the titles to Invader I and Super Gladiator but quickly gained them back before dropping the titles for good to Invader and Gladiator on 26 January 1982. The Kent and Bekkar team only lasted through one tour of the Caribbean, after which Bruno Bekkar returned to Australia and New Zealand to work for the local promotions there.
Bekkar was replaced with Johnny Heffernan (Canadian wrestler Bob Della Serra), a storyline cousin of Roy Heffernan, for what was the final version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. The team ended Terry and Dory Funk Jr.'s year and a half run with the WWC World Tag Team championship on 1 May 1982. Kent and Heffernan held the gold for less than two months before losing the WWC World Tag Team titles to Invader I and Pierre Martel. After a tour in Puerto Rico, Costello, Kent and Heffernan returned to work for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF), a promotion The Kangaroos last worked for in 1962. In Florida, The Kangaroos won the NWA Florida Global Tag Team Championship four times. The final storyline involving The Fabulous Kangaroos saw Al Costello bring in J.J. Dillon to act as his short term replacement while he was "away on business". When Costello returned from his business trip, Dillon kayfabe refused to give up The Kangaroos' contracts and was backed up by both Kent and Heffernan. This angle was designed to write Al Costello out of The Fabulous Kangaroos' storyline and allow him to retire from wrestling altogether. Not long after Costello retired, Kent and Johnny Heffernan went their separate ways.
Retirement
After retiring from wrestling, Al Costello became the head of security at College Harbor, Florida. In 1992, at the age of 71, Costello retired from his job in Florida and began teaching wrestling. He also started to manage The New Fabulous Kangaroos in 1993, a team consisting of Mickey Doyle and Denny Kass who worked for "Motor City Wrestling" (MCW). By the fall of 1993, Mickey Doyle had been replaced by a young wrestler by the name of Al Snow; with Costello's help The New Fabulous Kangaroos defeated "Canadian Lighting" (Otis Apollo and "Irish" Bobby Clancy), on 29 December 1993, to win the MCW Tag Team Championship. On 14 May 1994, Kass and Snow defeated Canadian Lighting again to win the Border City Wrestling (BCW) Can-Am Tag Team Championship, unifying the two tag team championships. A week later, The New Fabulous Kangaroos lost both sets of titles to Scott D'Amore and "Irish" Bobby Clancy. After losing the unified MCW/BCW Tag Team championships, The New Kangaroos split up; Snow focused on his World Wrestling Federation career while Costello retired for good, never making another wrestling related appearance.
Death
On 22 January 2000, Costello died from a combination of pneumonia and heart problems, in Clearwater, Florida. In 2003, Al Costello and Roy Heffernan became the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but The Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first. In the tradition of the Kangaroos, they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time.
Championships and accomplishments
Alex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)
International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Capitol Wrestling Corporation
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northeast version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Cauliflower Alley Club
Other honoree (1994)
Championship Wrestling from Florida
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version)(1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Eastern Sports Association
ESA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Georgia Championship Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Georgia version) 1 time – with Louie Tillet
International Wrestling Enterprise
Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Japan Wrestling Association
NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Midwest Wrestling Association
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Ohio version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Mike London Promotions
Rocky Mountain Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
National Wrestling Alliance
NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)
NWA All-Star Wrestling
NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship (Vancouver version) (4 times) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA Big Time Wrestling
NWA American Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Karl Von Brauner
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan (1), Karl Von Brauner (1)
NWA Detroit
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Detroit version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan (2), Ray St. Clair (1)
NWA Mid-America
NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version) 4 times) - with Don Kent (3), Herb Welch (1)
New Zealand Wrestling Union
NWA Australasian Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2003 - with Roy Heffernan
Western States Sports
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Roy HeffernanA
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Amarillo version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Association
WWA World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Don Kent
Worldwide Wrestling Associates
WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
WWA International Television Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Council
WWC World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996) with Roy Heffernan
References
External links
New Fabulous Kangaroos Tribute page
Roy Heffernan Interview
1919 births
2000 deaths
Australian male professional wrestlers
Italian emigrants to Australia
Italian male professional wrestlers
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Sportspeople from the Province of Messina
Stampede Wrestling alumni
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida | false | [
"The following is a list notable Australian netball international players who have represented the national team in international tournaments such as the Commonwealth Games, the INF Netball World Cup, the World Games, the Constellation Cup, the Netball Quad Series and in other senior test matches.\n\nMost-capped internationals\n\nSport Australia Hall of Fame\n\nIndividuals\nThe following Australian netball international players have been inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.\n\nTeam Sport Australia Award\nThree World Netball Championships winning Australia national netball teams have been inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.\n\n1963 World Champions\nThe following Australian netball internationals were members of the squad that won the 1963 World Netball Championships. In 2005 they were also inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.\n\n1991 World Champions\nThe following Australian netball internationals were members of the squad that won the 1991 World Netball Championships. In 1992 all the players and their head coach, Joyce Brown, were awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. In 2012 they were also inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.\n\n1999 World Champions\nThe following Australian netball internationals were members of the squad that won the 1999 World Netball Championships. In 2014 they were also inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.\n\nAustralian Netball Awards\n\nLiz Ellis Diamond\nIn 2008 Netball Australia introduced the Liz Ellis Diamond award in honour of Liz Ellis. It was awarded to the best performing Australian international, based on their performances with both the national team and in the ANZ Championship. Since 2017, it has been awarded to Suncorp Super Netball players.\n\nAustralian International Player of the Year\n\nAustralian Netball Hall of Fame\nThe following Australian netball international players have been inducted into Australian Netball Hall of Fame.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\n \nAustralian internationals\nNetball internationals\nInternationals",
"The term Victory International or Victory Internationals refers to two series of international football matches played by the national football teams of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales at end of both the First and Second World Wars. The matches were organised to celebrate the Victory of the Allied Powers in both wars. The term specifically refers to those matches played after the conflicts were over, making them distinct from the wartime internationals which were played during the course of the wars.\n\nAmong the games regarded as Victory Internationals were those played as part of the 1945–46 British Victory Home Championship. The 1945–46 season also saw England play Victory internationals against France, Switzerland and Belgium. Scotland also played the latter two national teams. The status of these internationals is open to debate. England, Ireland and Wales do not recognize any of these games as full internationals. Scotland, however, does list the games against Belgium and Switzerland as full internationals. Similarly, Belgium, Switzerland and France all regard their Victory Internationals as full internationals.\n\nWorld War I matches (1919)\n\nWorld War II matches (1945–46)\n\nSee also\nEngland national football team results (unofficial matches)\nScotland national football team results (unofficial matches)\nWales wartime national football team results\nList of Scotland wartime international footballers\n\nReferences\n\n1918–19 in English football\n1919–20 in English football\n1918–19 in Scottish football\n1919–20 in Scottish football\n1945–46 in English football\n1945–46 in Scottish football\n1945–46 in Irish association football\n1945–46 in European football\n1918–19 in European football\n1919–20 in European football\nAssociation football terminology\n1945–46 in Belgian football\n1945–46 in French football\nWartime association football"
] |
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